


Knuckles Boom

by NetRaptor



Series: Sonic Boom's Angel Island [1]
Category: Sonic Boom (Cartoon), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 09:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11734653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NetRaptor/pseuds/NetRaptor
Summary: When Knuckles finds a new kind of chaos crystal on the beach after a storm, it begins to take over his mind. Afraid to tell his friends, he tries to battle it alone, but Sticks persuades everyone that he is under the control of Eggman, enemy nations, or both. Meanwhile, Eggman learns the truth, and plots to use Knuckles's vulnerability to his advantage ...





	1. Chapter 1

The storm that had lashed Bygone Island for three days was finally dying down. The racing clouds showed blue sky between them, but the ocean continued to pummel the beaches.

Knuckles had led the villagers in sandbagging the village and their homes, and had spent most of the storm out in the wind and rain, checking for leaks, and adding more bags to protect endangered areas. Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Sticks had worked hard, too. Now that the storm was over, everyone had retreated to their huts to dry out.

Knuckles had awakened early, with the pressure of responsibility weighing heavily on his broad shoulders. He pulled on his shoes and a jacket, which had yet to properly dry from the rain it had absorbed, and stepped outdoors. The wind blew his red dreadlocks around his shoulders. All of his fur was red, except for the white crescent on his chest, which marked him of the ancient echidna race.

The sea had receded far down the beach, where before it had wet his doorstep. All the village's houses were built on stilts, to let the floods race beneath. Knuckles checked for damage, but his sandbag walls had held through the last night.

"How's that for smarts?" he muttered, throwing a grin toward Sonic's hut, where the shutters were still closed.

He set off at a jog along the beach, breathing deeply and working his stiff muscles. The beach was cluttered with flotsam cast up by the ocean-piles of seaweed, dead fish, strange shells, driftwood, odd rusted things. The beachcombers would have a field day. Heck, Knuckles might come out here himself and poke around.

Bygone Island's beach curved along the south and west sides, but the north and east ends were broken into jagged rocky cliffs. Knuckles jogged an easy two miles, until the beach ended in a towering cliff wall, eaten away in caves underneath by the ocean's ceaseless pounding. The tide was still going out, and the caves were open, their rock walls dripping sea water, crusted in barnacles, mussels and sea anemones. More debris had been washed inside. Knuckles stooped and peered in.

A glint of green caught his eye. A flashlight with a green lens? He ducked into the low-ceilinged cavern and picked his way around a pile of sea trash. The green thing lay at the back, half buried in silty sand. If it was a flashlight, how had it survived a wetting with the batteries intact? He pawed the cold sand aside.

It was a green gem the size of his fist. An emerald. Knuckles picked it up and wiped the sand off its smooth facets. A glow radiated from its center, as if a spark of fire had somehow been fossilized in the stone. "Definitely chaos crystal," he muttered. That crazy snake Lyric had been after a bunch of the stuff, all different colors, too. But none of the crystal had been cut to this degree of skill.

Knuckles blinked.

Cold water lapped around his ankles. He was no longer in the cave-he was out at the foot of the cliffs with the tide soaking his shoes, in the dangerous areas where the water could catch you unexpectedly and slam you into the rocks. How had he got here? The chaos crystal-or emerald-was in his outstretched hand, facing the rising sun.

Knuckles jammed the emerald into his coat pocket. Chaos crystal did weird things, and this one was weirder than usual. Had it teleported him? Or had it taken him over and made him walk out here?

He glanced at the sand. His own footprints led out of the cave, now partially washed away by the surf. Not a teleport, then. Mind control, the way Lyric had controlled his robots.

With a shudder, Knuckles jumped the rocks and headed back to his hut. He'd hide this emerald away. If Eggman got his hands on a mind-controlling crystal, there was no telling what sort of havoc he'd cause.

* * *

As the sun rose, the villagers emerged and began clearing away the sandbags and sea rubbish from the storm. Roofs needed repairs, windows had been cracked, clothing needed drying. The supply freighter from the mainland finally arrived, and the shop had groceries again.

Amy Rose, pink hedgehog and resident creative personality, cleared the mess around her barbecue pit, and started a pit roast going. "Everyone needs some cheering up after the storm," she told Sticks the badger, who was helping.

Sticks was a short, skinny bundle of brown and white fur, and a ragged green jumpsuit that passed as clothes. She never seemed to change it, and Amy was afraid to ask if Sticks ever considered doing laundry.

Sticks heaved a bundle of driftwood into a pile near the fire. "The government sent that storm with their weather control devices."

Amy shook her head. "No, Sticks, bad weather is part of nature."

"I can prove it!" Sticks exclaimed. She lowered her voice, her eyes darting back and forth, as if expecting spies to be listening in. "All the food in the store has gone up in price by twenty percent. I did the math. Who benefits from the increased tax rate? The government!"

Amy folded her arms. "So, the government sent a storm so they could raise food prices?"

Sticks nodded violently.

Amy sighed and resumed building up the barbecue fire. "It wouldn't have anything to do with the boat being late, and the law of supply and demand?"

"Don't confuse me with economics!" Sticks snapped. "I know I'm right."

And that was that. There was no arguing with Sticks's paranoia.

Knuckles walked up, glanced at the pit without a word, then sat at the picnic table. The sun had dried it, and Amy gave an inner sigh of exasperation. "I hadn't put the table cloth on yet, Knuckles."

He sat took his elbows off the table. "My bad." But he stared out to sea, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. Amy threw the tablecloth on-cheerful yellow and white checkers-and added a centerpiece of fresh bananas and mangos, for color. Knuckles didn't notice, but then, he never did. Amy didn't mind-she did it for the aesthetics.

Sonic dashed up, his blue spines wind blown, the athletic tape on his hands and feet still a fresh white. By the end of every day, the tape was always massively dirty from the hedgehog's high speed stunts. "Hey Amy! What's cooking? Oooh, deep pit barbecue!"

"It won't be ready until tonight," said Amy, shooing him away from the pit.

Sonic swung by the picnic table and snagged a banana. "Hey Knux."

Knuckles raised a hand in vague greeting.

Sonic peeled the banana and took a bite. "I'd ask what you're thinking about, but that'd be a waste of time." Knuckles swung at him, but Sonic dodged and ran to a safe distance, laughing.

Tails sat beside Knuckles at the table. He had a tiny bundle of metal and wires in his hands, and pulled a tiny pair of pliers from his tool belt to tinker with it. "The storm opened a new cavern on the east side of the island, and the salvage rats had this on sale this morning." It didn't matter that Knuckles was the least tech-savvy of their group-Tails explained his mechanical projects at length to anyone who would listen.

Knuckles eyed the alien object. "Will it explode?"

"I don't think so. It's a communicator relay for robots, but it has similar properties to Lyric's armor. I might be able to use it to take over Eggman's robots the way Lyric did."

Sonic leaned over Tails's shoulder. "You could do that? Think of Eggman's face when his robots switch sides!"

Tails grinned. "If I can get it working, and if that's what it does."

Knuckles traced the checkerboard pattern on the tablecloth, frowning. "Tails, do you remember those crystals Lyric was after?"

"The chaos crystals?" Tails turned wide blue eyes on the echidna. "What about them?"

Sonic swooped in. "Whoa, Knux is asking an intelligent question? Didn't know you had it in you, bro!"

Knuckles jumped up, fists clenched. "You don't know when to lay off, do you?" He snorted and stalked away toward his hut.

Tails gave Sonic a mild look. "That was rude."

Sonic absently smoothed his blue spines, gazing after the echidna. "What's eating him? He's never this sensitive."

Amy spoke up. "Knuckles just spent three days hauling sandbags, Sonic. He's tired. Give him a break."

Sonic plopped down at the table, spines drooping. "Way to make me feel like a heel, guys." When everyone gave him disgusted looks, he added, "I'll apologize next time I see him. Okay?"

"Okay." Tails held up his gizmo. "Anyway, as I was telling Knuckles ..." He launched into an extended explanation of the object's properties. Sonic's eyes began to glaze.

* * *

Knuckles stomped into his hut and slammed the door, then threw himself into his old brown easy chair. His hut was arranged like a gym, with a weightlifting bench, a treadmill, and assorted barbells on racks. A full length mirror occupied one wall.

But rather than any of that, Knuckles gazed at a strong box in the corner, where he had stashed the chaos emerald. His fingers itched to hold it again, and the green glow in its center hovered in his mind's eye all the time.

Was this normal for chaos crystals? He had handled them before, as had the rest of his friends. Nobody had ever had problems with them like this. Nobody had ever obsessed over them, or had their minds taken over.

Tails might be able to help him. He was the smartest one of the gang, and after Lyric had been defeated, Tails had spent time in the ruins and taken pages and pages of notes. Sonic's barbs stung, but Sonic was always a bit of a jerk. Knuckles brushed it off. Just one more obstacle to work around.

He rose from his seat and opened the strong box. Inside, atop a stack of boring but necessary paperwork-passports and the like-sat a black nylon bag that had once held a bowling ball. It now held the glowing emerald. He picked it up and carried it back to his chair.

The emerald slid into his hand with a clink, smooth, heavy, and beautiful. It cast flecks of light around the room, and its glow burned steadily, like a candle on a still night. It soothed the anxiety that had been building in him since that morning. It wasn't dangerous. Just a chaos crystal, glowing with power and-

Knuckles blinked.

He stood somewhere in the jungle, surrounded by trees and low-growing brush. His legs were scratched from walking straight through a grove of date palms without avoiding the fronds. His right arm was outstretched, gripping the emerald, and again he was facing east. And there was a fading sense in his brain ... He'd been hurrying somewhere, to do something urgent.

"It happened again!" he exclaimed. He threw the crystal down, then immediately picked it up again. Stupid-he couldn't leave chaos crystal out where anyone might find it. But where was he, anyway?

As he spun around, something moved out of sight behind a tree. His heart leaped into his mouth, and he ducked beneath the short palms around him. Then he crawled westward as quickly as possible. He'd only had a glimpse, but there was only one creature out here with shiny blue metal and glowing red eyes.

Eggman had repaired Metal Sonic. And worse, Metal Sonic had seen Knuckles in his trance state, carrying a chaos emerald.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well well," said Eggman, fingering his generous mustache. He sat in a comfortable swivel chair in the control room of his base, surrounded by screens. Each showed a view from a different camera or spy drone. But the center screen, in ultra high resolution, showed the view through Metal Sonic's eyes.

Together they had watched Knuckles walk straight through every obstacle in his path, his face blank and eyes fixed, like a sleepwalker. Then he stopped and looked around, apparently waking up-noticed Metal Sonic, and fled.

Orbot and Cubot watched, too. "That is very strange," said Orbot. "He acts as if that emerald is controlling him."

"When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it," Eggman snapped. "Metal Sonic, replay footage and focus on the crystal."

The footage rewound and zoomed in on the green gem. Eggman leaned close to the screen. "Hmm. It does look like an emerald. Metal Sonic, did you take readings?"

Another screen lit with a feed of Metal Sonic's findings. Spectral analysis discovered both chaos energy, and the wavelength peculiar to emeralds. Metal Sonic added a text message. "Shall I kill the echidna?"

"No! Observe only," said Eggman. "Really, since Lyric upgraded you, you've had far too many of these ideas."

Metal Sonic texted, "I exist to serve you, Master."

"Suck-up," muttered Cubot.

But Eggman continued to lean over the control panel, reading the analysis and studying the image. His enormous brain spun the possibilities every which way-a gem that hypnotized the user? Could be used to control Sonic and use him against his friends. Or get more gems and give one to all the rodents. It looked like ordinary chaos crystal. Of course, the echidna had awakened from his trance, which wouldn't do if Eggman wanted fighting machines ...

"Metal Sonic," he said, "follow and observe, but do not be seen. I need more data on this emerald, and how it affects minds."

* * *

As the sun sank that evening, Sonic knocked on the door of Knuckles's house. "Hey Knux, barbecue's on. Come and get it."

No answer. Sonic peered through a window. Knuckles was inside, lifting weights with his back to the door and headphones on.

Sonic knocked harder, but when Knuckles didn't hear, he opened the door, crossed the room, and tapped the echidna on the shoulder.

Knuckles gasped and whirled, dropping the weights. "Sonic!" He tore off his headphones. "What are you doing in my house?"

"Sorry, buddy," said Sonic. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Amy's deep pit is ready."

"Oh." Knuckles stashed the weights in their rack, and laid his music player on a shelf. "You could have knocked."

Sonic shrugged and let that one go. "Hey, I wanted to apologize for earlier."

Knuckles headed out the door. "For what, being yourself? It's no big deal." He added under his breath, "We all know I'm the dumb muscle."

For some reason, this sent a surge of alarm through Sonic's heart. Knuckles never, ever acknowledged the jokes about his intelligence. He always made out that he was actually the smart one. Something had changed inside the big red echidna.

Sonic hurried to walk beside him. "What's the matter, Knux?"

"Nothing."

"Was it the storm? I know I could have done more-"

"No, it wasn't that." Knuckles walked with his head down, a scowl creasing his forehead. "I'm just hungry, that's all."

"Heh, me too." Sonic couldn't get any more out of him. But he anxiously watched his friend all through dinner.

The barbecue was otherwise a success. Amy had invited some of her friends, among them Perci, a lavender echidna who wore her dreadlocks pulled back. "Wouldn't you like to sit over here with Knuckles?"

Perci shrugged. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather sit with Sonic." And she did, immediately asking him about his latest fight with Eggman.

Amy mentally smacked her forehead. That wasn't what she'd meant to do at all. But rather than mope about, watching Sonic entertain another girl, she kept busy serving food and making sure everyone was happy.

The only one alone was Knuckles. He had loaded a plate with beef, corn on the cob, watermelon and salad, and was eating his way through everything. Amy sat down. "How's the food?"

He gave her a thumbs up, since his mouth was full.

Amy leaned on the table and watched the party with the alert observation of a good hostess.

"You sure work hard at these things," Knuckles remarked. "Thanks."

Flattered, Amy beamed at him. "You're welcome! I think this is the first time you've ever noticed anything I did."

Knuckles glanced over his shoulder, into the dark jungle beyond the houses. "I've been noticing more stuff lately. Like, today I saw Metal Sonic."

Amy stiffened and whipped around to inspect the darkness, too, expecting to see a pair of red eyes glowing among the tree trunks. "I didn't know Eggman rebuilt him. He's here?"

"I don't know. I saw him out in the forest, but he probably followed me." Knuckles took another bite, chewed and swallowed. "Something's wrong with me."

Amy tore her eyes away from the darkness. "What? Did you hurt yourself lifting too much weight again?"

The echidna shook his head. "The reason I was out in the forest at all-I just woke up out there."

Amy folded her hands on one knee. "Really? How did that happen?" All her psychology reading sprang to the forefront of her mind, ready for use.

Knuckles again checked the dark woods. "I went out this morning, and I fou-I had an episode then. I only went about twenty feet before I woke up. Then this afternoon, I walked a quarter of a mile into the jungle."

"Like sleepwalking?" Amy said.

He shrugged. "I guess?"

"Maybe you have epilepsy. You know, seizures."

"Seizures that make me walk straight east every time?" Knuckles said, skeptically.

"Hm." Amy drummed on the table with a fork, and rested her chin in one hand. "This is fascinating. It could be some kind of hypnosis."

"What's that?"

"Hypnosis is a sleep state that is sensitive to suggestion. Has anyone interacted with you via repetitive images, moving objects, or lights?"

Knuckles ate a bite before answering, "Not really."

"Nobody?" Amy pressed. "There has to be a hypnotist involved. Unless you're hypnotizing yourself."

"What, like this?" Knuckles flexed a substantial bicep several times. "Oh yeah, I could watch that all day. Am I hypnotized?"

Amy smirked. "If it hasn't put you in a trance before, I doubt it will now." She frowned and bit her lip, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder again. "Let me know if it happens again, okay? We need to find what's causing it."

"Right. Um." Knuckles gave her an imploring look. "Don't tell anybody about this, okay? Sonic will never let me forget it."

"Or Eggman might find out," Amy said.

Knuckles stood and lifted his empty plate. "Eggman already knows. Metal Sonic saw me, remember?" He walked toward the garbage bin, leaving Amy with a sudden knot of dread in her stomach.

* * *

That night, Knuckles slept badly. Strange visions haunted his dreams-machines, faces of the Ancients carved in stone, and most of all, the emerald, always the emerald's enticing green glow.

He awoke and lay staring into the darkness. The room was stuffy and breathless, and sweat drenched his fur. The clock on his windowsill said it was 2:15.

Knuckles got up and poured himself a drink of water. It soothed his thirst, but the unrest persisted inside him. The frantic, urgent need to handle the chaos emerald, look into its glow. But no! It would hypnotize him, as Amy had said, and force him to walk who knows where. It must be feeding him suggestions, somehow.

But his palms itched for the gem's cool weight.

He opened a window and went back to bed, but sleep eluded him. It was a forbidden temptation, like knowing where the chocolate was stashed, and knowing he wasn't allowed to eat any. The more he tried not to think about it, the more he thought about it.

Finally, without consciously choosing to, Knuckles got up, opened the strong box, and extracted the emerald.

As soon as its cool smoothness hit his palm, he felt better. Keeping it away from his eyes, he shoved it under his pillow and lay down.

Sleep came immediately, but so did the dreams. Knuckles ran endlessly through dark, overgrown forest, toward a glow that remained hidden just beyond sight. Panic tore at him. Something terrible would happen if he didn't reach the light. Behind him, monsters roared. People screamed. He had to get there, before it was too late-

Knuckles blinked.

He stood in the jungle, emerald in hand. The sky beyond the treetops was the gray of dawn, and as usual, he was facing east. But in front of him was a huge boulder that had recently been cracked in two. Very recently-there was still dust crumbling from the edges of the crack. And his fist ached.

He had punched through a boulder in his sleep. Under the emerald's influence.

Knuckles's heart was still pounding from the exertion, but now it began to pound for a different reason. What if it had been a person in his way? Like Sonic, or Tails, trying to stop his entranced rush through the jungle? Would he have attacked them?

He ran back toward the village. His back trail was easy to follow-he had smashed through a fallen log, too. It was broken to splinters as if a bomb had hit it.

Panting, nervous, he stepped out of the woods and met Sticks.

She crouched in the fork of a tree fifteen feet from the ground, gripping her boomerang. Her green clothes and brown fur blended perfectly with the jungle, and the only reason he noticed her was because she drew back her arm to throw her boomerang.

Knuckles froze and shielded himself with both arms. "Sticks, don't!"

She hesitated, watching him. "I saw you run by. You were crazy. You smashed everything."

"Well, I'm not anymore," said Knuckles. He hid the emerald behind his back, but Sticks had already seen it.

"It's the shiny, isn't it?" Sticks said accusingly. "It makes you crazy."

"No! It's just something I found. Don't tell anybody, please?"

But Sticks gave him That Look. The look that said that he had gone from friend to Number One Person Out To Get Her. She leaped out of the tree and ran away.

Knuckles ran the other direction, to his hut. The door stood open, where he must have burst outside in his emerald-induced frenzy. He grabbed the black bag, stuffed the emerald inside, then dug a deep hole behind his hut and buried it.

But the damage was done.

After he showered, he went out to the little cafe where the gang always ate breakfast. Hunger gnawed inside him, and he couldn't skip breakfast if he'd wanted to. That nighttime run had burned serious calories.

Sticks was already there. She sat at a table with Sonic, Tails and Amy, their heads together. As Knuckles approached, they all looked at him with wide-eyed, speculative expressions. He cringed. What had she told them?

He ordered an omelette and a stack of waffles, then faced his friends.

"Well?" Sonic said, as Knuckles sat down.

"Well what?" Knuckles replied. Deny everything. Your word against hers.

"Sticks said you were running wild, breaking stuff. She says-" Sonic side-eyed Sticks. "-that you've been brainwashed by an alien artifact."

"And you're going to attack us to make way for your alien overlords!" Sticks exclaimed, pointing at him.

Knuckles glanced at Amy. She said nothing, but gave him a significant look. At least one of his friends was on his side.

He drew a deep breath. "I just started a new workout routine, guys. If I'm going to punch through robots, I gotta stay in shape by hitting other hard stuff. That's all."

"He had the alien artifact with him!" Sticks said. "It glowed green and it had brainwashed him!"

Knuckles held up his enerbeam bracelet. "I was using this. Duh."

Sticks glared at him, and he glared back.

The waiter arrived with their breakfasts, providing a welcome interruption. Sonic looked around the table and held up both hands. "We're going to assume that Knux hasn't been brainwashed by aliens for now. Everybody cool with that?"

Everyone nodded except Sticks, who ate without taking her eyes off the echidna.

Knuckles devoured his own breakfast, thankful for Sonic's loyalty. They had known each other since they were kids, and while Sonic teased him, he'd also stuck with Knuckles through lots of tough times.

He hoped the emerald wouldn't force him to betray that loyalty.


	3. Chapter 3

Tails was busy in his workshop when Knuckles knocked on the open door.

"Come in," called the fox. He sat at his workbench, a bright light fixed on the gadget he had been tinkering with. His workshop was half garage, half house. A bed and kitchen occupied one corner, but the rest was filled with salvaged machine parts, fuel cans for his plane, tools, and half-built inventions.

"Hey, I need to borrow a map." Knuckles stepped inside and scanned the junk.

Tails pointed with a screwdriver at an overstuffed bookcase. "Top shelf, left corner, there's an atlas."

Knuckles gingerly approached the bookcase. It was packed with books, binders crammed with notes and blueprints, and looked ready to fall over. The atlas was where Tails had said it was, and he extracted it gently.

Tails pushed his goggles up on his forehead, watching him. The fox had gold and white fur, two tails, and was the youngest of the group, not even fifteen. He also wore a tool belt around his waist, which sagged under the weight of its contents.

As Knuckles opened the atlas and paged through it, Tails asked, "Why do you need a map?"

"Oh. Uh." Knuckles scanned the room, as if he might find the answer in a corner somewhere. "I just wanted to see a map of our islands. You know. Just curious."

Tails flipped through the atlas to a two-page spread. "Here you go. This is Bygone Island, and we live right here." He tapped a spot on the western shore. It was marked, 'Bygone Village'.

Knuckles didn't say anything. But he touched the eastern branch of the compass rose. Then he put a finger on Bygone Village, and slowly drew his finger eastward in a straight line. The line crossed the thick jungle in the island's interior, three miles of ocean, and intersected Angel Island.

Tails watched. "Planning a trip?"

Knuckles shrugged. "Just seeing what's out there. Know anything about Angel Island?"

"I've flown over it a few times. It's really rocky-not many beaches. Nobody lives there, but the archeologists and salvage people have found tons of artifacts there."

Knuckles grunted. His finger traced the line between Angel Island and Bygone Village a few times. Then it moved to the little volcanic island north of Bygone, which was crowned by Eggman's fortress. Knuckles frowned at it for a long moment.

Tails waited, but Sticks's warning about alien artifacts echoed in his mind. Knuckles had never been interested in solitary adventures before, and he was clearly hiding something. Like all puzzles, the more curious Tails grew, the more determined he was to figure it out.

But he had to approach it carefully. Knuckles might let something slip if he didn't think Tails was prying. Tails drew a slow breath. "If you're planning a hike, there's trails that go like this." He indicated a curved line around the island's south-eastern end.

"What's in here?" Knuckles tapped the jungles in the island's middle.

Tails shrugged. "Ruins and stuff. The jungle is really thick, and there's snakes and parasites and alligators. You know. Not a nice area."

"Hm." Knuckles pointed at Eggman's base. "Why do we put up with him? Why don't we just move away?"

"We were here first," said Tails, flattening his ears in a righteous glare. "But also, Eggman is tapped into immense geothermal power. He sells power to all the villages on Bygone."

Knuckles raised an eyebrow. "Wait. We're all paying Eggman for electricity? Is that how he funds his robots?"

Tails hung his head. "Yeah. That's one reason Sonic won't leave. He thinks he can keep Eggman in line and protect the villagers, who are benefitting from Eggman. It's a catch-22." He cocked his head. "You've never been interested in this kind of thing before. Why now?"

"Oh, I, uh, I was just curious. Planning my jogging routes, you know." But Knuckles's gaze slid away from Tails's.

Tails tried a different angle. "You know, I've studied a lot of the Ancients's technology. If you find something interesting, I could take a look at it." Hint hint.

Knuckles opened his mouth, and hesitated. Then he looked away. "Nope, haven't seen anything. Mechanical, I mean. But, thanks for the map." He ruffled Tails's headfur and walked out.

Tails gazed after him, chewing the blade of his screwdriver. So Knuckles hadn't found anything mechanical. What if he had found something else? The Ancients had left behind treasures and artifacts that modern scientists barely understood.

When Sticks accused Knuckles of owning an alien artifact, maybe she wasn't far from the truth.

Tails glanced at the open atlas, and ran a finger eastward, through the jungle, to Angel Island.

* * *

Knuckles activated the enerbeam bracelet and flung the beam at a palm tree. The rope-like energy beam whipped around the tree and connected to itself, forming a seamless noose.

He hauled on the beam, stretching it as far as it would go. The tree creaked, bending, and its bark began to smoke. Knuckles held it there until his muscles began to tremble. The beam didn't burn through the tree-at least, not very fast. It had a low heat output, although greater strain meant greater heat. It was Ancient technology, courtesy of Lyric, modified by Tails. Knuckles had no idea how it worked. All that mattered was that it was stronger than him.

He tapped the button on the bracelet to switch off the beam. The tree swayed upright. Knuckles exhaled and panted, shaking his arms to release the tension. Then he scooped up the black nylon bag from the grass beside him.

The emerald had not stayed buried long. Knuckles's craving for it was simply too strong. "I'm like a drug addict," he muttered as he carried the bag deeper into the woods. "Only I'm a freaking chaos energy addict. One of these days I'll overdose, and that's all she wrote."

But the enerbeam was a new idea. Tether himself, then give the emerald a good hard look. When he woke up, he'd be in the same place, and maybe he'd have learned what the emerald was trying to show him.

Because it was trying to show him something. It was driving him either into the ruins, or Angel Island, or both. The sense of panicked urgency was a message, too. The trouble was, he didn't understand it. Maybe he wasn't smart enough. He'd never been good at science things like Tails. He preferred simpler things, like smashing robots. In quieter times, he liked building things. He'd been experimenting with birdhouses, and hoped to move on to furniture soon. A carpenter in the village had offered to teach him.

Either way, he needed to decipher the emerald's message. Maybe it was trying to warn someone about the Cataclysm, which had destroyed the Ancient world. In that case, he was hearing echoes of a long-dead storm siren. The very thought relieved some of the fretfulness inside him. It wasn't like he could fix that-the Cataclysm had been centuries ago.

Once he was deep enough in the woods that nobody would stumble across him, Knuckles set to work. He clamped a second iron bracelet to his left arm. Then he wrapped the enerbeam around a tree that was two feet thick, and connected the other end of the enerbeam to his iron bracelet. Now both arms were tied to a tree by the beam, leaving him just enough slack to pick up the emerald.

He lifted it, drew a deep breath, and gazed into the light in its center.

* * *

Sonic had crept through the jungle, following Knuckles. He kept his bandanna pulled over his face for camouflage, and stayed well out of sight.

Ever since Sticks's story that morning, Sonic had worried more and more about his friend. Like Tails, he assumed Knuckles had fallen prey to some artifact of the Ancients. He'd covertly followed Knuckles all morning, and now it had paid off-the echidna was doing weird things with his enerbeam.

Sonic crouched behind a banana palm and peered through the wide leaves. Knuckles was tying himself to a tree with the beam. What the heck? Sonic crouched lower, his wiry muscles ready to propel him through the trees at bullet speed.

Knuckles lifted his strange black bag and produced a glowing green gem. Sonic gasped, despite himself. Chaos crystal! And a really snazzy one. No wonder Knuckles had been acting weird-that stuff was dangerous. Sonic had felt the seductive call of the crystals while trying to keep them from Lyric-and he had seen first hand what too much chaos radiation did to a living body. It was why Lyric had worn his robot suit-as life support.

Knuckles looked at the emerald for a moment. Then he flung himself against the enerbeam.

Sonic flinched. He'd seen Knuckles fight, of course, but the echidna used his strength as a precision tool. This was different. Knuckles leaned against the beam with all his strength, feet churning trenches in the earth. Then he roared and flailed left, then right, stumbling to his knees, leaping up again. He whirled against the tree, teeth bared in wrath, and attacked it with his fists.

His eyes glowed green.

Sonic backed away, spines bristling in alarm. Had the emerald possessed him? Whatever it had done, the beast before him had forgotten that it was Knuckles. But what to do? Sonic didn't dare get close enough to take the emerald-Knux would split his skull. And who knows what the emerald would do if Sonic touched it. So he waited, tensed to run.

Knuckles's blows tore into the tree like blunt teeth. The claws on his knuckles ripped chunks of wood free, and in a few minutes, he'd cut a white gouge out of the trunk. The enerbeam, meanwhile, had been burning through the other side of the trunk. He was going to cut the tree down.

Sonic waited in suspense to see if crazy Knuckles could pull it off. Would he get tired? Wouldn't he tear up his hands? The athletic tape on Knuckles's hands was shredding away, fluttering around his arms like ribbons. But beneath it, Sonic glimpsed a set of barbed steel knuckles. No wonder the echidna never hurt himself when smashing robots.

Knuckles strained backward. The enerbeam stretched, then sliced through the rest of the tree like a wire through cheese. The tree toppled sideways, the branches snapping and tearing at the surrounding trees. Knuckles simply bolted, speeding away into the jungle.

Sonic zipped under the falling tree and followed. The tree crashed to the ground behind him, a reminder of Knuckles's insane strength.

Knuckles ran straight through the jungle, weaving around trees and smashing through rocks like a bulldozer. Sonic followed in his wake, with growing uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. Knuckles was going somewhere fast, and determined to get there no matter what stood in his way.

They ran deeper and deeper into the jungle. The trees grew larger, the ground honeycombed with a solid mat of mossy roots. Sonic slowed down rather than risk breaking an ankle, but Knuckles kept going. Soon he was out of sight among the trees and hanging vines.

The trees blocked most of the sun, but here and there, sunbeams stabbed through the canopy. As Sonic watched his footing, one of these sunbeams reflected off a shiny object. He looked up.

Metal Sonic flitted through the shadows a hundred feet away, his shiny hull catching the light like a mirror. He was focused on Knuckles, and seemed not to notice Sonic.

Icy needles of fear prickled down Sonic's back. He dove behind a tree, panting. Metal Sonic was bad news. Sonic had only fought him twice, but each time, the robot had torn chunks out of him. And now it was stalking Knuckles.

Actually, this might be pretty hilarious. Knuckles was insane, super strong, and wearing the enerbeam. If Metal Sonic attacked him, Knuckles would likely smash him into scrap, then pound the scrap into abstract sculpture. Sonic crept out of hiding and trailed them both.

Sonic's headset crackled with static. Tails said, "Sonic? Are you there?"

Rats. Sonic tapped the activation button. He'd forgotten he was wearing the thing. He stopped and Metal Sonic disappeared into the jungle. "I'm here."

"I've picked up an attack swarm of robots leaving Eggman's base. You've got ten minutes to get ready. Is Knuckles with you?"

"Uh-yeah."

"Tell him to come, too! His headset is off. Tails out."

Sonic wavered, pulled in two directions. Chase Knuckles and deal with his insanity? Or run home to defend it from his eternal foe?

Knuckles would survive-the village wouldn't.

Sonic dashed for home.


	4. Chapter 4

The call tugged at every cell in Knuckles's body. It rang through his being, drawing him ever deeper into the jungle, urgent and frightening and exhilarating. It was buried treasure and hurricane warning, danger and power, precious and deadly.

Knuckles responded without thinking, drawn like a paper clip to a magnet, swamped by the emerald's overwhelming force. But as the thick underbrush closed in, and the trees drew together, he slowed and wavered. The call tugged him, but there was simply no way through.

As he struggled through a fence of vines entwined with ivy and philodendron, Knuckles surfaced from the emerald's power. He was conscious of lifting his head, as if he'd been underwater and was swimming upward. He stopped tearing through the vegetation, and panted, hard. So much for the enerbeam idea. But where in the world was he?

Now that his faculties had returned, he wasn't compelled to move in a straight line. So Knuckles climbed one of the immense trees.

It was a kapoks tree, a monster bigger around than three cars parked side by side. Aerial roots descended from the branches to the ground like support cables, and the first branches began three stories up the trunk. Knuckles dug in with his claws and climbed, using the roots for support now and then.

Halfway up the tree, he broke into the sunlight above the canopy. He settled into a comfortable branch, shaded his eyes, and looked around. The jungle was an ocean of green, broken by other kapoks trees as massive as his own. In the island's interior, the land rose into hills. And on the nearest hillside, strangled by the jungle, stood the remains of a wall. The brick was yellow limestone, much stained by weather, but still laid with the intelligent care of the Ancients. Now that he'd spotted it, other ruins became visible-a broken pillar, tumbled masonry, part of an arch, pulled to pieces by climbing vines.

The emerald's call rang through his subconscious. He'd found the place where it wanted him to go.

But in the distance, in the other direction, metal glinted in the sunlight. Robots from Eggman, headed toward Bygone Village. Knuckles tensed and dug his claws into the bark beneath him. One, two-fifteen-he lost count at twenty-seven. What was Eggman playing at? Was he seriously trying to destroy the village?

He glanced at the ruins, and the emerald's call tugged at him. Turning his back on it filled him with unreasoning grief, as if he'd abandoned a dear friend. But his real friends were in trouble, and he couldn't leave them to face the enemy alone.

Knuckles ran to the end of the branch, leaped to the branch of a neighboring tree, and made his way through the canopy, avoiding the dense thickets on the ground. "Hold on, guys," he muttered. "I'm coming!"

* * *

Sonic intercepted the robots on the beach half a mile from the village. He would have attacked them sooner, but the only other open land nearby was a coffee plantation, and Sonic knew better than to mess with one of Bygone's biggest cash crops.

The robots resembled insects, as usual. Eggman usually favored the wasp design, but these were more like dragonflies-long, thin bodies, four wings, and a clamp on the tail. Despite their three-foot length, they were devilishly fast, zipping out of Sonic's way before he could smash them.

Eggman himself arrived in his round hovercraft, elbows resting comfortably on the frame. "What's wrong, Sonic? Having a slow day?"

"Nope, just warming up!" Sonic ran, jumped, and curled in midair into a spin dash. His whirling spines tore a dragonfly in half, and it crashed to the sand in ruins. But the rest of the swarm dive-bombed Sonic and locked their tail clamps around his arms and legs. They lifted him into the air. Sonic struggled and twisted, but the robots moved with him, flexing and shifting.

Eggman slow-clapped. "Well well! I never thought that strategy would work."

"It's not over yet!" Sonic snarled. He threw himself forward into a spin, taking the robots with him in a wild cartwheel. The mass of glittering insects and hedgehog careened toward the surf and crashed into the hard sand.

Tails, Amy and Sticks arrived, panting. Sticks brandished her boomerang, Amy carried her giant gyro-hammer, and Tails wore a belt with deep hip-pockets full of devices.

"Flydroids, attack them!" Eggman bellowed.

Half the dragonflies abandoned Sonic and swarmed over the other three in a cloud. Amy and Sticks dispatched several, but Tails stood still, watching the robots. He pulled out the tiny Ancient device and connected two of the wires.

All the dragonflies froze in midair, then fell to the ground. Tails beamed at the device. "Yes!"

"Whoa, Tails!" Sonic exclaimed, brushing sand off his fur. "What'd you do?"

"Impossible!" Eggman roared. He swooped forward in his hovercraft, which remained unaffected by the device. "What did you use? An EMP? A wave-scrambler? I demand to know!"

Tails put the device behind his back, and his friends leaped between him and their enemy. "Back off, metal breath!" exclaimed Sticks.

Amy hefted her hammer, eying Eggman's hovercraft.

He shifted gears and retreated to a safe distance. "I'll find out what you did, fox-boy! That battle ended in forty-five seconds, which is much below my average!"

Sonic bowed. "That's why you don't mess with us, Egghead! We'll beat you so fast, you'll turn into meringue!"

"Ooo, burn," said Tails, and gave Sonic a high five.

Sticks backed away one step, then another. "Guys! Guys! Look!"

The dragonflies were twitching. One locked its tail clamp onto its neighbor. That one locked its clamp onto still another.

"Tails?" Sonic said, eyes widening.

The fox unhooked his device's wires. "I didn't do it, I swear!"

"Oh ho!" Eggman swooped forward, adjusting his glasses. "It looks like an unintended side effect!"

The dragonflies rose into the air, hooked together to form a cone shape. The point of the cone was the broken tail of a defeated robot, now jagged and wickedly sharp. The lance swung about with a buzz of wings, and aimed itself at Tails.

Sonic grabbed Tails and dragged him out of the way as the robot lance fired itself. It embedded itself in the sand, three dragonfly-lengths deep.

"Stay back, buddy!" Sonic said, and flung himself at the robots. Sticks and Amy joined him, and together they beat on the dragonflies.

Wings and legs tore loose, but the robots remained locked together. Their eyes grew brighter red, as if angered. The colony tore itself out of the sand, and attempted to skewer Amy. She barely dodged, and it tore through the hem of her shirt as it slashed by.

Eggman applauded. "Go team! See, Cubot, they work even better than I had planned! Pay up."

Cubot handed Eggman a twenty. "I retract my former statement regarding the uselessness of dragonflies."

The lance aimed itself at Sticks. Sonic ran to protect her, and the lance stabbed sideways through the quills on the back of his head. It drove him to the sand and pinned him there, and Sonic let out an undignified squawk.

"Excellent!" Eggman said, pumping both fists in the air. "And I've recorded that scream for posterity. Listen!" He played back Sonic's yell, but pitched an octave higher. "Dear me, hedgehog, you scream like a girl."

"Let me go!" Sonic thrashed, but the lance held him like a tack through paper. "This is why I don't use hairpins!" He kicked and drove himself in sideways circles around and around the tip of the lance, giving himself spectacular sand burn.

Then the cone of dragonflies unfolded. Each clamp switched its hold, and the whole glittering mass sank into Sonic, covering him. "Help!" he wailed. "They've got my neck-" his words dissolved into choking.

Amy, Tails and Sticks attacked the robots, but there were so many, by the time they fought through to Sonic, it would be too late.

"Eggman!" Amy cried, "call them off!"

Eggman held up both hands. "Tails broke them out of my control. Although, I must say, they're doing much better with Tails driving."

Tails frantically fumbled with the Ancient device, but his hands shook too much to connect the wires. Panic fogged his mind. Sonic was dying, and he couldn't save him. He wanted to scream in frustration.

Then Knuckles arrived.

The echidna hit the robots like a bulldozer, scattering carapace and hydraulic fluid everywhere. He punched straight through them, threw Sonic over one shoulder, and tore out the other side of the massed robots with only one fist.

"Hey!" Eggman roared. "I was filming that!"

Amy, Tails and Sticks made short work of the remaining dragonflies, which had lost their defensive posture. Then they all headed for Sonic's house, leaving Eggman to fly back to his volcano fortress, fuming.

Knuckles opened Sonic's door, carried him inside, and set him on the couch. Sonic sat there, rubbing his neck, breathing hard, and staring straight ahead.

Tails's self-control gave way completely. He sat beside Sonic and hugged him, tears streaming down his muzzle. "Sonic, I'm so, so sorry! I almost killed you!"

Sonic put his arms around Tails, and they held each other for a while. Tails sobbed into Sonic's shoulder. At one point he pulled the Ancient device out of his belt pouch and threw it across the room. "Stupid thing! I hate the Ancients!"

Amy knelt before Sonic with a first aid kit. "It's okay, Tails. Calm down. Everybody's all right now." Sonic had scraped off chunks of blue fur by spinning on the sand, and sandy blood crusted his left leg, side and arm. Amy gently wiped it off and sprayed the wounds with antiseptic.

Sonic inhaled through his teeth. "Ow! Warn me next time!" His voice rasped like a lifetime smoker.

Knuckles threw himself into an armchair, watching all this. "Uh, I take it this wasn't a regular Eggman thing."

"It started okay," said Sticks. "Just a bunch of stupid dragonflies. Then Tails used his shiny and they got all smart and tough and tried to kill us! Say, are you working with Eggman, Tails? Is that why the robots almost got Sonic? You are, aren't you!"

"No!" Tails cried. "It was an accident! It was that stupid device!"

"Now, calm down, everyone," said Amy in her most soothing voice. "Of course Tails isn't working with Eggman."

"It's true," Sonic rasped. "Tails was trying to help. By the way, Knux, thanks."

Knuckles lifted a hand. "No prob."

Tails glanced at Knuckles, wiped tears from his eyes, and looked again. The athletic tape on his arms and hands hung in rags. His fur was full of dirt and burrs, and he sat with his chin tucked almost to his chest, so he watched the room from beneath lowered eyebrows.

He looked like an Ancient.

Tails's breath stuttered in his throat. Did the others see this? Hadn't they ever looked at the paintings and statues of the ancient echidnas? What had Knuckles been doing?

Sticks, unsatisfied with Tails's defense, turned on Knuckles. "Why were you so late to the fight? And why are you so torn up? Did the aliens brainwash you again? I'll bet they did and you're turning evil as we speak!"

"You speak," said Knuckles. He got up and left without another word.

Tails, Sonic, Amy and Sticks watched him go, each with a different concern.

"Don't antagonize Knuckles, Sticks," Amy said in a low voice. "He's having some hard times."

"That's because evil doesn't pay," Sticks retorted. She stuck her nose in the air and left, too.

"Hard times?" Tails whispered to Amy. "He went all Ancient just now!"

"He's been having nightmares," said Amy, taping bandages over Sonic's scrapes. "Anything else is in confidence and I can't repeat it."

Sonic didn't say anything. But his grimaces at Amy's doctoring were perhaps a little more extreme than necessary, and not even Tails noticed the worry in his eyes.

* * *

Knuckles locked himself in his hut, and began stripping off the ruined athletic tape. "Turning evil as we speak," he grumbled. "Sticks, you should have been named Splinter, because you're that annoying."

He ripped off the last piece of tape and began winding fresh tape around his hands and arms. It always made him feel like he was donning armor-the tape was extra thick and extremely durable.

Except when tearing up trees.

He'd seen the tree he'd cut down while on his way back to the village. Not cut down-destroyed. The emerald had triumphed again. What if he found whatever it sent him after, and it made him attack his friends? But he had to find what was in those ruins or the emerald would torment him. He snarled at himself in the mirror. "I hate having no choice! This is stupid!"

Then he spotted a folded piece of paper on his windowsill. "Who sent me this? And why didn't they put it in the mailbox?" Knuckles unfolded it, then put on his reading glasses. He could read just fine, but he liked Eggman to underestimate him, and so usually faked illiteracy.

The letter appeared printed, but had been written in pencil. As he read, the fur began to stand up all the way down his back.

Knuckles,

As you know, I have been observing you for some time. Today's episode was most impressive. I believe we can help each other-I can lead you directly to the place where the emerald is driving you. In exchange, you must help me locate a small piece of working Ancient technology. Agreed?

It was not signed, but half a second's thought was all it took to figure out the sender. "Metal Sonic," Knuckles breathed. He peered out the window, but the sand and trees behind his house appeared empty.

He grabbed a sheet of paper and a pencil of his own, and scribbled a reply in his own awkward, messy writing.

I don't trust you. You'll sell me to Eggman. What is this tech you want? A bigger gun?

He folded it and placed it on the windowsill. Then he returned to replacing his athletic tape.

A moment later there was a tiny scraping sound at the window. A new sheet of paper had appeared. Knuckles picked it up and again looked out, but there was no sign of the robot. He must be very close, though. Nervous, Knuckles made sure his other doors and windows were locked, then read the note.

It is in my best interests to help you, and for you to help me. Therefore I will not betray you. I desire the ability to speak. Eggman will not install such an upgrade. In exchange, I will guide you to the center of the ruins.

Knuckles pondered this. Why did Metal Sonic think Knuckles could help? He didn't know how machines worked, and he certainly didn't know how to dig voice technology out of an old busted robot.

He turned the paper over and wrote, Why me? Tails would know how to help you.

He placed it in the windowsill, then sat across the room and watched. After a moment, the paper slid out of sight. Then it returned, but the robot was careful to keep out of Knuckles's line of sight.

Knuckles lifted the paper and again looked out, heart pounding. Metal Sonic could creep into his house at night and murder him in his sleep, and no one would ever know. No robot should be that quiet.

Beneath his question, Metal Sonic had written his reply.

There is no way I can trade services with Tails at present. But you are about to awaken things that you cannot imagine. I merely request to accompany you and salvage a few parts. I intend no harm, and Eggman will remain unaware of this venture.

Knuckles glanced around his hut again, and nervously whistled a tune through his front teeth. He could always refuse. But the robot would follow him anyway. And worse, he'd probably shoot Knuckles for not helping him. At least if he accepted, Metal Sonic had promised not to hurt him or sell him to Eggman. But could Metal Sonic be trusted?

He scribbled, How do I know I can trust you? He set it on the windowsill and fled to his chair.

The paper vanished for a moment, then reappeared. Knuckles unfolded it to find two additional words.

You can't.

At least Metal Sonic was honest. Knuckles drew a deep breath, then leaned out the window. "Fine. I'll help. Next time I head out there, we'll deal."

Metal Sonic stepped out from behind a tree. Even through Knuckles had been expecting him, he still jumped. The robot was so small and blue and pointed. Almost comical, if not for the clawed hands. He met Knuckles's eyes and nodded once. Then he retreated behind the tree again.

Knuckles closed and locked the window.


	5. Chapter 5

Sonic slowly ate a bowl of soup Amy had brought him. This was agony on several levels-first, it hurt to swallow. Second, Sonic inhaled food as fast as possible, due to general impatience and a metabolism like a blast furnace. Eating slowly with a sore throat was lame and fail.

When he complained to Amy, she folded her arms and looked stern. "You're hurt, Sonic the Hedgehog. You need food, and this soup is packed with nutrients. I made the broth myself, and the vegetables are one hundred percent organic."

"But soup is so ... watery." Sonic swirled it with his spoon. "Where's the meat?"

"It's vegetable, Sonic. No meat."

He stuck out his lip and gave her his best puppy eyes. "But ... but I like meat!"

"The broth is made from fresh fish. There's plenty of protein and minerals."

"Fish. That explains the ... peculiar bouquet." He sniffed his bowl. But when Amy glared, he sighed and ate some more.

Tails walked in, carrying a book under one arm. "Hey, what's that awesome smell?"

"I made Sonic soup for dinner," said Amy. "Want some?"

"Yes, please! I love soup." Tails sat at the table with Sonic.

Sonic glared. "You're ruining my image, kid."

Tails gave him an innocent look, then curled his tails around him in the chair. "Anyway. Something's up with Knuckles. I wanted to show you this." He opened the book-an atlas-to a map of Bygone Island. "He was interested in what's east of the village. He drew this line with a finger, so I marked it." He indicated a pencil line drawn straight through Bygone's interior and stretching to Angel Island on the map's edge.

"Whoa." Sonic leaned over the map and pointed to Bygone's interior. "He headed out there today. I followed him most of the way, but Eggman interrupted."

"Oh man!" Tails exclaimed. "Find anything?"

"Just jungle. And Metal Sonic."

Tails flinched. "Metal Sonic?"

Amy arrived with a second bowl of soup, which Tails attacked at once. She studied the map. "Oh. So that's what he was talking about. Knuckles said he's been hypnotized, and Metal Sonic's been watching us."

"Watching him, you mean," said Sonic. "Completely ignored me, which is weird."

Tails blinked at Amy. "Did you just break confidence?"

Amy smoothed the pink quills that composed her hair, and a blush touched her cheeks. "Maybe. But if we all know something about Knuckles, we need to pool our knowledge to help him."

"Yeah, help him into a padded cell," Sonic muttered. "You know what he did?" He related the incident with Knuckles chaining himself up, then destroying the tree to get loose. "All he had to do was turn off the enerbeam! But he was crazy. Cuh-ray-zee."

"Maybe that's why Metal Sonic is following him," said Tails, waving his spoon. "If he's spying for Eggman, Eggman probably wants to know if Knuckles is cuckoo, and is planning to spread it to the rest of us."

Sonic shook his head. "Tails, you scare me sometimes."

"Why? Because I know the way Eggman thinks?"

"Yeah. That." Sonic slurped the remainder of his soup, and pushed the bowl aside. "So, Knux has this glowing green chaos crystal. Sticks saw it and called it an alien artifact, then I saw it, today. Knux tells Amy that it hypnotizes him. He goes to Tails to find out where it's sending him. Metal Sonic is watching him." Sonic met Tails's and Amy's eyes. "Guys, this could be really important. Like, what if the emerald makes him wake up another Lyric?"

They all considered this prospect, and shuddered.

"So let's beat him there," said Amy. "We can find whatever he's after, and if it's dangerous, we can destroy it."

Footsteps pounded on the porch outside, and Sticks burst in, her brown fur stuck full of leaves. "Knuckles is brainwashed by aliens again! I just saw him run into the jungle with the device!"

Sonic leaped to his feet. "Come on, guys. Time for the big reveal. And bring flashlights!"

* * *

Knuckles followed his previous trail into the jungle, emerald in hand. But he didn't look at it - he knew where he was going now, and insanity didn't appeal.

Plus the sun was setting, and the woods were already darkening. He should have waited for morning, but curiosity and the emerald's compulsion wouldn't let him rest.

As he passed the shattered remains of the tree, Metal Sonic appeared out of nowhere, and fell into step beside him. Knuckles flinched. "Oh. Uh, hi there."

The robot's eyes flicked toward him, and it nodded once.

"Does Eggman know you're here?"

Metal Sonic shook his head.

"Okay, then." Knuckles drew a deep breath. His body fizzed with adrenaline - terror of the robot, excitement at what he was about to find in the ruins, hope that the emerald would stop driving him.

Their journey was quick and uneventful, although a panther screamed in the distance once, making Knuckles jump. The sun sank completely, and the jungle turned completely black. They traveled by the emerald's light, and the glow of the robot's red eyes.

The land rose into hills, and they reached the remains of the wall Knuckles had seen earlier. He held the emerald high to spread its light. It illuminated an avenue between the ruined buildings that had once been a road, but was now choked with brush and trees.

He gestured to Metal Sonic. "Lead the way."

The robot strode forward, and Knuckles followed him. They followed the avenue for a way, then turned down another one. The green light showed roofless buildings - houses, maybe - their stone walls tumbled and scattered by the jungle's rampant growth. Everywhere were carvings depicting the Ancients. Echidnas, mostly, but other species, too. There were battles and weddings, portraits of kings and wizards, inventors who built the immense mechanical constructs still being excavated.

"This was their city," Knuckles muttered. "Look at all this. What happened to them all?"

Metal Sonic halted, and pointed to a mosaic on a broken pillar. It depicted a monster rising from the ocean.

Knuckles studied it. "That was the Cataclysm?"

The robot nodded once. Then it continued its journey, and Knuckles hurried to follow, questions filling his mind. But his companion couldn't answer any of them.

"You know," said Knuckles, as they hacked through a tangle of flowering vines, "having no voice makes you pretty darn scary. Isn't that kind of the point? To scare the crap out of us?"

Metal Sonic glanced over his shoulder, red eyes brightening several watts. He pointed at himself, then Knuckles, and held up both hands.

"There's things you want to say, but can't," Knuckles interpreted.

Metal Sonic nodded.

They were nearing the center of the ruins, and the jungle had not swallowed it so completely. They stepped into a stone-paved courtyard, where only a few tufts of grass had managed to sprout between the stones. The buildings around it had lost their roofs, but their walls still stood, flanked with majestic pillars and statues of famous people, now long forgotten.

Metal Sonic walked straight across the courtyard toward a raised platform on the far side. It was surrounded by broken pillars that had once supported stone arches. One arch still stood, although it was heavily overgrown in vegetation. Upon the platform sat a statue of an echidna on a throne.

As soon as he saw it, Knuckles was filled with relief. The emerald's glow brightened. This was the place where it had meant for him to go all along. The terrible pressure in his brain eased at last.

Metal Sonic halted at the foot of the platform's steps, and pointed at the statue.

"Okay," Knuckles replied. "I - I don't know what to do, though."

Metal Sonic folded its arms and tapped one foot, very much like Sonic.

"Okay, okay." Knuckles climbed the stairs, heart hammering against his rib cage. The statue waited for him, and the approaching light deepened the shadows about its face and arms. It was encrusted with orange and green lichen, but this had added only another layer to its impressiveness.

One of its hands had been carved palm-up. A hole had been carved, in the exact shape of the chaos emerald. Knuckles looked closely at the hole. A couple of old metal connectors were at the bottom, now badly rusted from the weather.

"Nothing will happen," he told the emerald. "After this, leave me alone." He set the gem into the stone hand.

It fit into the hole exactly, and cast a weird light across the stone echidna's face. The eyes, though. Knuckles tapped one. Glass, the inside grown with moss. It must have been a machine at one time, but the centuries had corroded it beyond repair.

Then blue lights appeared in the eyes. Knuckles jumped backward, fists raised in defense. The light spread in geometric patterns across the statue, igniting fiber optic cable that had been concealed by moss and leaves.

A voice spoke in Knuckles's head. It was grainy, like a very old recording. "Greetings, child. I am the Speaker, oracle of the echidna nation Takutakuwanda. You have brought the Prime Chaos Emerald."

Knuckles licked dry lips. "Prime Chaos Emerald? I don't - I mean, I just found it on the beach."

The blue eyes moved up and down, as if scanning him. "Records indicate that there has been no Guardian in eight generations. You are of the echidna race. Do you agree to become the Guardian?"

Knuckles gulped. "Uh, what is a Guardian?"

"The Guardian protects and cares for Angel Island, the greatest construct and treasure of our people."

Angel Island! Knuckles clapped a hand to his forehead, the atlas flashing before his eyes. "So that's why the emerald was making me run east! Angel Island is a construct? And treasure?"

"Yes." The Speaker scanned him again. "Do you agree to become the Guardian?"

Knuckles floundered. "Uh, well, this is kind of a big deal, right? I just want to go back to my normal life, you know, fighting Eggman and stuff. I don't want to become the Guardian - "

The statue's eyes turned green. "Voice string 'become the Guardian' accepted."

"Wait, no! That's not what I meant!"

The Speaker talked over him. "Voice registration complete. Psychic evaluation commencing."

A whining noise blasted Knuckles's head. He clapped his hands over his ears, but the noise was inside his head, as the voice had been. The sound seemed to fragment his thoughts, filing them away like dross from a diamond, leaving nothing but the agony of the piercing ringing sound.

Then it stopped. Panting, Knuckles lowered his hands and shook his head.

The Speaker said, "Psychic evaluation complete. Personality type: ideal. Beginning Guardian title transfer." The green eyes swirled like whirlpools. Knuckles looked at them -

It was like channel surfing on TV. Scenes flickered before his eyes - people building strange machines, vast empty hallways lit by glowing crystals, an echidna dressed in gleaming black armor, an army of floating robots, moving silhouettes at the mouth of a cave, and last of all, the chaos emerald, inside a giant machine that stretched outward for miles.

When it stopped, he found himself on his knees before the statue. They smarted where he had hit the stone, and he rubbed them as he stood up. His brain felt as if someone had rearranged the furniture. New thoughts flew through his head - concerns about Angel Island, and how to get there as quickly as possible.

"Guardianship complete," said the Speaker. "Congratulations, Knuckles the Echidna. May you bear your new role with grace and dignity." The statue's eyes turned blue again, then flicked to something behind Knuckles. "Construct, step forward."

Metal Sonic climbed the steps and stood beside Knuckles, shaking his head and waving his hands.

There was a click inside Knuckles's head, and a not-quite voice said, "No. No. I refuse." It was like listening to a computer convert text to speech. The Speaker had begun translating Metal Sonic for him.

"No!" Knuckles added. "This is Metal Sonic - he's not acceptable for any Angel Island stuff."

"The Speaker is equipped to select the appropriate crew," said the statue, sounding slightly miffed. "Psychic evaluation commencing."

Thankfully Knuckles couldn't hear the whining sound this time. Metal Sonic stood stiff, and his red eyes blinked off.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by cricket song and the calls of night birds. And footsteps. Knuckles spun around.

Sonic, Tails, Amy and Sticks were crossing the courtyard toward him, equipped with flashlights and their usual weapons.

Knuckles gasped. "Stay back! Don't let it see you!"

Sonic shone his flashlight on the statue. "That thing? Whoa, you fed it the Emerald? What's it do?"

"It's assigning new jobs!" Knuckles exclaimed. "It just made me a Guardian, and Metal Sonic - "

The Speaker said in his head, "Psychic evaluation complete. Construct Metal Sonic appropriate for role of Ghost."

"What - " Knuckles began.

"Beginning Ghost title transfer."

Metal Sonic's red eyes blinked on, then brightened until they were spotlight-bright. Then he collapsed like a dropped toy, eyes extinguished.

"Dude," said Sonic. "It killed him." The hedgehog stepped up on the platform and directed his light on the robot's face.

The Speaker's eyes scanned Sonic.

Knuckles jumped between the statue and his friend, but it was too late.

"It's talking in my head!" Sonic exclaimed. Then he froze, listening.

"No, no, no," Knuckles muttered, tugging his dreadlocks and spinning in place. "Sonic, tell it no! You have to refuse!"

Sonic grinned, eyelids drooping, as if sinking into a waking dream. "It says it wants me to be a warrior. I'll totally be a warrior."

The statue's blue eyes turned green as it poured information into Sonic's head. Knuckles drew back a fist to smash the statue's head, but froze. Horror crawled through him-he couldn't harm the Speaker. It was too important. Slowly he lowered his fist.

Sonic shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "Whoa, what a ride. Tails, you won't believe this-this statue just called me a warrior and showed me cool pictures. Right in my head!"

Tails climbed the steps. "Really? Will it do it to me, too?"

Knuckles couldn't watch anymore. He ran across the courtyard, into the darkness, and sat on a chunk of masonry that blocked his view. He'd been changed. His friends were being changed. And he couldn't stop it, because none of them listened to him. He put his head in his hands and drew deep breaths.

Metal Sonic's red eyes appeared in the darkness a few feet away. The robot rested one cold hand on the echidna's shoulder.

"What'd it do to you?" Knuckles said in a low voice. The touch creeped him out, but some new instinct imparted by the Speaker told him that the robot was on his side.

The strange text-to-speech voice played in his head. "I am the Ghost of Angel Island. I watch. I hunt. I see all. When necessary, I kill."

"And what's Eggman going to think about that?"

Metal Sonic bowed his head. "I shall endeavor to keep the information from him."

"You're going double-agent?"

The robot removed his hand from Knuckles's shoulder, and pressed his metal hands to his own temples. "I. Have. No. Choice."

For a mind-voice with no inflection, there was an awful lot of pain there. "We're in the same boat," said Knuckles. "Every dang last one of us."


	6. Chapter 6

They all slept late the next morning. By the time Sonic got up, and dragged out to the little cafe for a cup of coffee, the breakfast rush had ended. All the tables were empty except one, and that was occupied by Amy, Tails, Knuckles and Sticks. Their fur was rumpled, and everyone nursed cups of coffee.

Sonic ordered his own cup and breakfast, then sat in the remaining chair. "Hey."

"Hey," everyone responded.

Sonic stirred cream and five packets of sugar into his coffee. "So, anybody have any idea what that statue did to us yesterday?"

Knuckles shook his head and sighed.

Tails sat up a little straighter. "It communicates with us on electronic frequencies that exactly matched the patterns of the neurons in our brains. Since that's different for everyone, the statue tuned itself to each of us automatically. Really amazing."

"It was psychic and evil!" Sticks exclaimed. "It put more voices in my head. And pictures. I don't need anymore voices and pictures!"

"And we're all something different, right?" Sonic tapped his chest. "It called me a warrior."

"I'm a caretaker," Tails grinned.

"Overseer," said Amy. "Appropriate, since that's what I do around here anyway."

"It called me a Seer," Sticks stage-whispered. "Because I know the future. When the aliens invade the world and turn everyone into zombie slaves and feed them entirely on peanuts!"

There was a brief silence. Sonic nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. The seer thing, not the ... alien ... thing. Hey Knux, how about you?"

Knuckles toyed with his cup, frowning. "It made me the Guardian."

Amy leaned her elbows on the table and studied him. "And how do you feel about that?"

Knuckles cracked a smile. "Not crazy, for once. It's a nice change."

Their breakfast arrived, and the group dug in. Sonic devoured his Sunrise Bacon, Mushroom and Cheese omelette, and thought about it all. The statue had told them things, and given them titles-but what did any of it mean?

"Say, Amy," said Sonic. "About Angel Island. Do we own it or something?"

The pink hedgehog frowned and pulled out her smartphone. "Let me look that up. I don't know how island ownership works." She flicked her thumb across the screen several times, then typed a few things.

Sonic chewed delicious cheesy egg, and watched his friends. Aside from being tired-they had trudged back to the village and arrived well after midnight-everyone seemed the same. They'd had an interesting adventure, and that was all.

And yet-curiosity tugged at him. Or perhaps a power stronger than curiosity. He wanted to visit Angel Island today. Now. If not for the aching hole in his middle and the delectable breakfast in front of him, he would have jumped up and ran off.

"Hmm." Amy tapped her screen. "Angel Island is for sale for three million. But it's not a very good island, so nobody wants it."

Knuckles clenched a fist, as if she'd insulted him. "What do you mean, not a very good island?"

Amy read from a list. "Rocky coast, no beaches. Poor anchorage for boats. No airstrip, no communications of any kind. No water."

Sonic nodded. "Sounds sucky to me." He glanced at Bygone's wide, sandy beach in the distance, edged with gently curling breakers.

But he was Angel Island's warrior now. What did that mean?

"Sucky or not," said Knuckles, "the Speaker passed it on to us. We have to find a way to make it ours. It's a construct."

Everyone blinked at him. Tails's mouth fell open. "A construct! You mean it's a giant robot?"

Knuckles shrugged. "That's all the Speaker said. That it was his people's greatest treasure."

Sticks looked up from her chicken-fried shrimp. "Where there's treasure, there's traps. And death pits. And pitfalls. And death pitfall traps!"

"Count me in," said Sonic, unable to hide a grin. "But how can we get there without a plane or a boat?"

"There's a dock on the lee side," said Amy, holding up her phone to display an aerial view of the island. While most islands were unevenly shaped, Angel Island was a perfect circle. It rose to a single peak in the center, and the rest was cloaked in green jungle.

The sight of it sent a happy rush of recognition through Sonic's heart. It felt as if he had sighted a childhood home, and had been told he could go back.

Apparently everyone else felt the same.

"It doesn't look so bad," said Sticks.

"I can't wait to visit!" Tails exclaimed.

Knuckles only smiled-the sort of besotted smile usually reserved for small fluffy animals.

"I'll charter us a boat at the marina," said Amy. "Everybody else, pack your things. Something tells me we might be there a while."

Sonic gulped the rest of his breakfast, and dashed for his hut. "Last one to the boat is a rotten Eggman!"

* * *

"And where have you been?" Eggman snapped.

Metal Sonic had closeted himself in the automatic maintenance bay deep inside Eggman's fortress. It was a sinister box of mechanical arms with sharp tools, under lit with red lights. Steam billowed dramatically from beneath the bay's platform. Metal Sonic was reduced to a black silhouette with glowing red eyes, surrounded by busy machinery that oiled his joints, checked his fluid levels, and appraised the condition of his machinery.

Eggman stood nearby, a remote tablet in his hands. "I sent you to spy on them, you worthless hunk of scrap. But all you did was stare at the village square for eight hours! Granted, I now know the routines of all the villagers. And that Dave is building evil robots in his apartment."

Metal Sonic said nothing. Despite the maintenance bay's frightening appearance, it was sheer bliss to be cleaned and oiled. He had overwritten his video storage with footage from a spy drone. He'd planted them everywhere, and could activate them remotely to generate dummy footage.

Orbot and Cubot peeked through the doorway behind Eggman. Red sphere, yellow box. They loved seeing Metal Sonic in disgrace, and were nearly giggling.

"Either way," Eggman continued, stroking his enormous mustache, "I sent you to spy on Sonic and his pathetic friends. Now, you're going to get back out there and do it. Understand?"

Metal Sonic sent a text response to Eggman's monitor. "Yes sir. I will endeavor to better my performance."

"See that you do," Eggman said. "Or I'll melt you down and start over." He whirled and tried to stride loftily from the room, but tripped over Cubot. "You idiots! Get out of the way! Or I'll send you to do menial kitchen work that will rival Dave's fast food job!"

Without Eggman, the maintenance room was positively peaceful. Metal Sonic submitted to having his waterproofing repaired. He had two conflicting orders, and his subroutines processed and processed, seeking a solution. Had a living being experienced the same thing, they would have said that they were deeply troubled.

His programming was layered like a cake. First was his base operating system. Next came the upgrades Lyric had poured into him-they were so memory-heavy that Eggman had had to upgrade Metal Sonic's bios chips to keep him functioning. Next came the layer of modifications that Eggman had made to Lyric's code. And above that was the chunk of code uploaded by the Speaker, giving him loyalty to Angel Island and his fellow crew mates.

Metal Sonic had to visit Angel Island and learn about it-and possibly kill any intruders. But Eggman had commanded him to observe Sonic and the rest. How to do that without informing him about Angel Island?

For Eggman must not learn about it. The thought sent fear-reaction dancing through his processes. If Eggman learned of the amazing riches buried deep within the island, he would stop at nothing to take it for himself.

Metal Sonic opened his video software, and began tinkering with green screen effects.

* * *

It was a fine, sunny day, and the ocean was calm as the charter boat sped across the waves. Knuckles stood at the railing in the bow, dreadlocks streaming behind him, and watched Angel Island draw nearer and nearer. He drew deep breaths of the fresh, salty air, and laughed. The emerald had ceased hypnotizing him-he could look at it now as long as he wanted. The desperate, fearful pull inside him had been replaced by a happy anticipation. Even the island's blank, densely-forested hills failed to unnerve him.

Amy stepped to the rail beside him, shading her eyes with one hand. "Isn't it beautiful!" She had replaced her usual outfit with tough canvas pants and a khaki vest.

Knuckles grinned and nodded. "This will be the best thing ever. Even better than beef stew!"

"I am so excited," Amy said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I don't even know why!"

The boat's captain turned the boat to run parallel to the island's shore, following the northern shore toward the dock on the western side. Knuckles and Amy gripped the railing, laughing for no reason.

As they drew closer, they saw that Angel Island was a forbidding, rocky place. Instead of beaches, it had sheer, rocky cliffs, overhung with vegetation. The air was filled with gulls, terns, and other sea birds, busy nesting on the heights.

Deep inside him, Knuckles knew that the island was supposed to look like a horrible, undesirable place. The Ancients had designed it that way. But whispers of transmitted memories flickered in his subconscious. There were ways into the island's interior, where all the comforts of home waited for them.

The dock was nearly fifty feet long, extending far out from the rocky shore. The captain chugged in at a crawl, then Sonic jumped off with a rope, and helped moor the boat.

Then they all disembarked, carrying backpacks and duffel bags. Knuckles carried an enormous load of camp ware on one shoulder-tents and the legs of a folded stove were most visible.

"You sure about this?" the ship's captain called. "I won't be out this way again for another week."

Tails held up a homemade phone. "I have satellite access with this! If we need a pickup, we'll call."

"All right," said the captain dubiously. "Mr. Hedgehog, cast off, if you please."

Sonic untied the lines and threw them into the boat. The captain started the engine and reversed away from the dock. Once clear, he cruised away toward Bygone Island, leaving a white wake behind him.

Silence fell. The quiet of a completely deserted island. Gulls cried in the distance. The boat's wake struck the dock and clucked among the pilings.

Sonic turned to Knuckles. "So, Knux. You're the Guardian. Where to?"

The red echidna adjusted the load on his shoulder. "This way." He headed up the dock toward land, and everyone hoisted their bags and followed.

The dock ended at a faint path of crushed rock that wound away into thick trees. Knuckles stepped onto the island, and his heart leaped. The memories from the Speaker blazed to life in his mind, and he strode up the path as if he owned it. This was home. This was his island.

"Dude," Sonic breathed behind him. "I'm having serious de ja vu here."

"I swear I've never been here in my life," said Amy. "But I know that there's a fabulous overlook about a mile that way."

"There's machines somewhere," Tails muttered. "But where? And how can I work on them without parts and blueprints?"

Sticks said nothing. But she hurried forward to walk beside Knuckles.

The path wound steeply upward, and the party slowed, heaving their packs up it. Knuckles panted, "About fifty more feet, guys, then it levels out."

"How do you know?" Amy gasped.

"I'm the Guardian," Knuckles replied. "I know every inch of this place." And he did. Whenever he thought about their location, he instantly knew where they were, every twist and turn of the path, and where to find the underground entrance.

Unfortunately, his memories were centuries old, and the jungle grew fast. Where it leveled out, the path angled south, when it used to head east. Knuckles halted, facing a solid green mat of jungle. "It's all overgrown. Figures." He dumped his armload on the ground and unrolled it. Tucked neatly inside the folded tents were a pair of brand new machetes. He picked them up in either hand. "Wait here. I'll blaze a new trail."

Sticks wrung her hands. "But that will lead enemies straight to us!"

Sonic tugged on a vine. It resisted him. "We're not carrying all this stuff through that."

"Objections noted," said Knuckles, and attacked the jungle with both blades. He sliced through vines, branches, fronds, and tangled thickets, machetes flashing. It was hard work, but it felt good to use his massive strength to help them all.

The path had completely disappeared, so he recreated it. As he plowed deeper into the jungle, his friends followed him with their gear.

The dense shade in the forest's interior made the undergrowth thin out, so Knuckles was able to simply walk, hacking the occasional branch out of the way. The land rose as they climbed the central mountain's foothills, and jagged rocks appeared among the tree roots. Black volcanic rock, full of little bubbles that had hardened into razor-sharp edges. Knuckles punched one such rock experimentally. It shattered.

"How much further?" Tails panted. He and Sonic were carrying Knuckles's load in addition to their own.

"About half a mile," said Knuckles. "Sonic, you want to break trail?"

"Sure!" Sonic dropped his backpack and Knuckles's tent roll, took the machetes, and headed into the jungle. As he neared a thick patch of undergrowth, he ducked into a spin dash. With the machetes in either hand, he ate through the growth like a lawn mower.

Knuckles picked up his and Sonic's burdens. "You're doing great, guys. Almost there."

Amy hurried to catch up to Knuckles. "Hey, if nobody lives here, who built the dock? And that trail we followed?"

"I don't know," said Knuckles. But now that she brought it up, it bothered him. "Maybe the corporation that sells islands?"

Tails panted, "The salvage guys come out here sometime. Apparently there's machinery and stuff here, if you look hard enough."

His words struck them all with outrage, and everyone gave him a sudden look. Tails frowned. "That's like somebody robbing our house, isn't it?"

"That's going to stop," said Amy. "Today. What if the island is broken because of the salvage people?"

Knuckles said nothing. He had worried in silence about the sixth member of their group-Metal Sonic, the Ghost. Now he knew exactly why the Speaker had recruited him.

Sonic and Knuckles took turns blazing a trail up the side of the mountain. Then Knuckles turned right and led them down into a fold in the hills, where a brown stream a foot wide trickled through the thirsty roots of a jillion trees.

"I thought you said there was no water," said Sonic.

"Ground water," said Amy. "This is rain water. How else do you think the forest grows?"

They followed the little ravine to its head, which was a steep hillside-almost a cliff. It was thickly grown with ivy, but the stone edge of some kind of structure was visible at one side. Knuckles tore the ivy down in an explosion of dust and insects.

He revealed a set of doors, similar to those that had guarded Lyric's tomb. They were stone, and engraved with bas relief depictions of the Ancients, arms raised toward a floating island in the sky. In the center of it all was a rusty metal plate with the imprint of a hand. Knuckles placed his hand in it.

There was a click that resonated through the stone, then a grinding of gears, and the doors slowly swung open. Cold, musty air wafted over them.

Tails pulled a flashlight out of his work belt and tossed it to Knuckles.

"Hey," Sonic exclaimed, spines bristling. "I should go first. I'm the warrior."

Knuckles frowned. "The Speaker made me the Guardian. I go first."

Sonic dropped his equipment. "Knux, hate to break it to you, but you're not smart enough to be the leader. Hand over the light."

A month ago, Knuckles would have caved at once. But now he had a head full of encyclopedic knowledge of the island and its interior, and that should be enough to let him lead. He resisted, wanting nothing more than to punch Sonic in the nose.

Then it occurred to him that Sonic had no idea where he was going.

He handed Sonic the light with a relaxed grin. "Sure, pal. Whatever you say."

Sonic flicked on the light and marched into the tunnel. Knuckles picked up his things and motioned for everyone else to follow Sonic. Tails and Sticks did, but Amy hung back, giving Knuckles a doubtful look. "You gave him his way. What are you up to?"

Knuckles grinned. "Nothing whatsoever."

"Uh huh." Amy pulled a light off her own belt, and she and Knuckles brought up the rear.


	7. Chapter 7

The tunnel was actually a hallway with a smooth stone floor, walls and ceiling, wide enough for three people to walk abreast. There were carvings on the walls, but they appeared ornamental-long flowing curves and the occasional geometric shape. Every so often there was a thing like a light fixture, but instead of a bulb, there was a grayish, dusty crystal.

"Fiber optic lighting?" Tails guessed, examining one. "Stick a light source in the center, and it lights them all?"

"Whatever it is, it doesn't work anymore," Sonic observed.

Knuckles said nothing. He only grinned to himself. Amy glanced at him and sighed.

After a hundred feet of passage, they reached an entry hall with a high ceiling. They shone their lights about. There were four hallways leading north, south, and east. The eastern passage was a wide staircase that plunged downward into darkness.

"This way," said Sonic, and took the stairs.

Knuckles laid a hand on Amy's shoulder and guided her to the left side of the stairs. She gave him a puzzled look. "What are you doing?"

"Wait for it," said Knuckles.

Sonic had nearly reached the landing below, when the steps gave way. He vanished down a deep, dark hole with a wail, and a second later there was a huge splash.

Tails and Sticks narrowly avoided falling in, too. They huddled around the hole, which was a concealed trapdoor. "Sonic!" Tails yelled. "Are you okay?"

"Cold!" Sonic's voice echoed up the shaft. "I'm in a well or something! Throw me a rope!"

Chuckling, Knuckles directed his light down the shaft. It was twenty feet deep, and ended in a large water tank. "Consider yourself lucky. Those are supposed to be boiling hot."

Sonic glared up at them, clinging to the tank's lip. "It's full of slime, which is worse! Get me out of here!"

"There's an access door downstairs," said Knuckles. "We'll be there in a few minutes." He calmly led the others away from the trap door, and everyone followed him closely.

"First stair case, stay to the left," he told them as they crossed the landing. "Second stair, stay right." They did, almost brushing the wall.

"I knew there'd be traps," Sticks muttered. "Boiling water traps! Sonic's lucky to be alive."

"Oh, even boiling, he wouldn't die right away," said Knuckles, grinning. "The Ancients preferred to capture their enemies alive. Hostages and all that. And water is a fine deterrent against robots."

"How do you know all this?" Tails demanded.

Knuckles tapped his forehead. "The Speaker loaded me up with memories."

They descended a third staircase, staying to the center this time, then reached the bottom. They entered a huge, echoing hall, with a dusty marble floor, and ornately carved pillars along both sides. Many passages opened in the walls, some with rotting wooden doors hanging half off their hinges.

Knuckles led them to one such door, and down a short hallway to a room that reeked of swampy water and wet stone. His light revealed eight enormous metal tanks, now crusted with black slime, plus three more that were fully enclosed by reinforced stone barriers. Each barrier had a latched door. Knuckles went to the first one, lifted the latch, and swung the door open.

Sonic blinked at them from inside. "Finally!" He scrambled out, splashing water everywhere. It stank of old, stagnant pond.

"We'll need to drain these and clean them," said Knuckles. "These are supposed to be our water supply."

Sonic wiped slime off his chin. "Now you're really grossing me out. Where the heck are we?"

Knuckles led them back out to the main hall, where Sonic once more took the lead. "Okay, we'll set up camp here. We'll explore each of these doors until we've mapped the whole place. Sound good?"

Everyone agreed except Knuckles. "If we head through that door on the left, we can camp in the old crew bunker."

Sonic shot him a fierce look. "Stick with the plan, Knucklehead."

Rather than punching Sonic in the nose, Knuckles spun on his heel and strode away into the darkness.

Control your temper. He can be a jerk sometimes, and he's used to being the boss.

But Knuckles's blood pressure remained high, flooding his body with heat. He stalked through a random door and down a spiral staircase, following the circle of light cast by his flashlight. The voices of his friends faded behind him.

"I'm the Guardian," he muttered, his voice echoing along the stone walls. "I know everything about this place-but Sonic doesn't get it."

He reached the bottom of the staircase and found himself in a chamber filled with glinting, gleaming crystal clusters. They were taller than he was, and absorbed his flashlight beam, refracting it through each crystal. They were white and yellow, but one was smoky purple, like a giant amethyst.

Knuckles's memories showed him a flash of chemists pouring special chemical mixes into the bases of each cluster, growing the crystals for the mechanics to harvest later. But in his memories, the clusters had never been this large. It must be because they had been left alone for centuries.

A huge, elaborate door composed the entire far wall. It had a handprint lock on it. Moving by long memory-habit created by hundreds of other Guardians, Knuckles walked up and touched it.

The doors clicked, and one slowly swung open with a hideous creaking of rusty hinges. Green light streamed out-the first light he had seen in this place. Knuckles peered in.

It instantly struck him as a sacred place, although he didn't know why. The cave was undressed stone, but the floor was polished marble swirled with natural patterns. In the cave's center was an altar. It was perhaps twenty feet wide and ten feet high, made of huge stone blocks. On top of it rested a green chaos crystal the size of a small car.

Knuckles crossed the room and climbed the altar without conscious thought-the gem drew him like a paper clip to a magnet. The gem was cut like the emerald had been, the work of a master craftsman. It was an emerald-the Emerald-the Master Emerald. He brushed a thick coating of dust off the top, and the cool gem warmed at his touch. "You beautiful thing," he breathed.

It sang in his head, like the sound of a crystal wineglass. He listened with a blissful sigh. This was where he belonged. This was where the little emerald had been driving him. Here, to Angel Island, and the Master Emerald.

Memories flitted about the edges of his subconscious, full of knowledge about how to use the giant gem. But for now, Knuckles was content to simply enjoy it. He sank down to sit beside it, and gazed through its facets to the glowing spark in its center.

* * *

Metal Sonic stood silent, peering through a partially opened door into Eggman's control center. Or his office. It was difficult to know what to call it.

Eggman was in a video call with a blue cat, who wore a black business suit and a red power tie. Her eyes were a savage predator yellow, and had no expression. "And you say they have been extensively tested?"

"Oh yes," said Eggman. "You know the power of my alpha testing group. The Flydriods nearly slaughtered them. The current build of Flydroids are unstoppable by Mobians without chaos powers."

"Excellent." The cat's face did not change. "The last units we acquired from you performed admirably. We destroyed three entire cities before the military discovered how to disable them."

Eggman tapped his fingertips together. "The robo-scorpions were anti-structure. The Flydroids are anti-personnel. They can capture or kill-or both."

"We will perform basic tests to verify these claims," said the cat. "But judging by previous units, there should be no problem. The money will be transferred to your offshore account within five business days."

Metal Sonic withdrew from the door, moving silently on foam-padded feet. Eggman's constant, somewhat silly attacks on Bygone Village had a dark ulterior motive. Every robot design battled Sonic in multiple iterations until even Sonic had trouble taking it down. Then they were sold to the highest bidder. There were some terrible wars happening at the moment, powered mostly by Eggman's robots.

Metal Sonic made his way through the lesser-used maintenance halls of the fortress, and departed via a small side door that often served his spying missions. Then he ignited the jet in his torso and blasted into the sky.

He flew south, over Bygone Island, following his usual route to the village. Although his destination was Angel Island, it would not do to have Eggman track him. He landed half a mile from the village and covered the rest of the distance on foot.

Metal Sonic was a solitary robot, built for speed, intimidation and quick murder. He had never thought much about it before. But now, with the Ghost programming mixed into his software, he thought about it often. Eggman wanted him isolated, voiceless. Yet the Speaker had made him part of a team.

He reached the outermost houses of the village-large bungalows with bright vegetable gardens. He paused to watch a couple of young squirrels running about their yard, laughing and shouting. People were social animals. They lived in groups and interacted and sold goods to each other.

Eggman was solitary. An outlier. Perhaps a maniac. Although Orbot and Cubot were allowed to speak and interact, Metal Sonic was not.

Loneliness ate at him. Thoughts and questions filled his head, but he could ask no one. The more layers his programming received, the more questions occurred to him. Why do people eat? What makes a male and female attracted to each other, to the extent that they produce offspring, which are troublesome and annoying? Why did Sonic allow Eggman to exist, when he possessed the power to destroy his fortress and drive him from the islands?

Why had the Speaker chosen Metal Sonic?

He skirted the edges of the village, keeping to the trees, then rocketed toward Angel Island. It pulled at him, exotic and desirable, yet it made no logical sense. The coding the Speaker had given him was the equivalent of instructions for guarding Eggman's fortress. It should not generate this ... eagerness.

More questions he could not ask.

The island lay before him, a green hill in the blue ocean. A scan revealed that it was empty of sentient life. Good. He would not have to kill anyone yet.

He landed on the path above the dock and shut off his jet. Then the island's chaos field engulfed him.

Metal Sonic knew about chaos fields. Like magnetic fields, they were created by chaos crystals, and were used in much of the Ancients' machinery. They did everything from generate shields to take over the minds of robots. Most Mobians were unaware of them, but after Lyric's upgrades, Metal Sonic had been able to detect and study them.

Stepping onto Angel Island was like smashing into the sun's magnetic field. The robot staggered, dizzy, and caught himself against a tree trunk. What was this? How could this chunk of land generate a field this strong?

"Hello, Metal," said Knuckles's voice in his head. "About time you got here."

Metal Sonic slipped behind the tree and swept the area with a scan. No sentient life forms within range. The Speaker had enabled him to send Knuckles messages, but supposedly that had ended when they left the jungle.

Hesitantly, he composed a message in his communications center. "How are you speaking to me?"

Knuckles sounded cheerful. "No idea! I'm hanging out with the biggest chaos crystal ever, so that might be doing it. Want to come inside?"

"Inside?"

"Of course inside. The place is a construct. Or didn't the Speaker tell you?"

"He neglected that detail." Metal Sonic wondered why. "Guide me in."

Knuckles directed him to a hilltop, where a metal door was buried beneath leaves and soil. Metal Sonic dug it free, then burned away the rust sealing it with the industrial laser in his right eye.

"Whoa," Knuckles remarked. "I didn't know you could do that."

"I am capable of a great many dangerous things," Metal Sonic replied. "But friendship ... that I remain unsure about."

He pried open the door with a screech of rusty hinges, and dropped inside. He landed with a thud on a stone staircase, and had he not been a robot, likely would have broken an ankle. The staircase ended in a ladder extending up to the trap door Metal Sonic had just opened. He closed it carefully. Then he activated his night vision and followed the stairs downward, into the bowels of Angel Island.

* * *

"Hey, anybody seen Knux?" Sonic called.

Tails, Sonic, Amy and Sticks had found their way to a fantastic control room, completely dark but for one lit holo screen. It held only the message, "System standby."

"Knuckles would know what this is, since he's an encyclopedia now," Sonic added. "Where'd he go?"

"He walked off in a huff back in the main hall," said Amy. "I might be able to find him."

Sonic frowned. "In a huff? What was he mad about?"

Amy strode toward the exit, tossing her hammer from hand to hand. "Somebody called him stupid."

Sonic looked at Tails and Sticks for backup. "Well, he's a few fries short of a combo, right?"

Tails had discovered an access hatch beneath the control panel, and was just disappearing inside.

Sticks folded her arms and looked at Sonic. "Knuckles is, even as we speak, plugging his consciousness into the island's computers and becoming a super being. We'll have no choice but to blow the place."

Sonic rolled his eyes, then crouched over the panel where Tails had vanished. "Be careful, little bro."

"This is amazing!" the fox's voice echoed up. "So much intact Ancient technology! And it still has power! I may be able to turn the lights on. Hold on."

Sonic waved Sticks over. "Aim your light down there, will you? My light's at the bottom of a slime trap."

Sticks obligingly did so. Tails called, "Thanks! These connectors are out of alignment. Like the whole place had an earthquake. But I think-yeah, that's the last one."

Lights blinked on, flooding the control room with warm yellowish light. The dark passages outside lit, too.

In the distance, Amy screamed.

Sonic's heart caught in his chest. He bolted for the door.


	8. Chapter 8

Amy had made her way back to the main hall, where their bags and gear remained piled against the far wall. Already she was learning her way around the place. They had to let her decorate it-the architecture begged for a few flourishes.

Now, Knuckles had gone toward the back of the hall. She played her light about. Yes, there was a particularly grand doorway there, flanked with pillars and crowned with an arch. All it needed was a semi-transparent curtain-blue, probably-to really set it off. Then she'd add-

The lights blinked on, illuminating an impressive amount of dust on the floor and cobwebs in the corners. Amy turned back toward the control room. "Tails, did you-"

There, standing in the middle of the hall behind her, all blue pointy ends and glowing red eyes, was Metal Sonic.

Amy shrieked.

Metal Sonic fled through an unexplored doorway with near-Sonic speed. Half a second later, Sonic arrived and skidded to a halt on the dusty floor, spines bristling. "Amy! What's wrong?"

"Metal Sonic!" She pointed at the passage where he had gone. "The lights came on, and he was right behind me!" Her heart still thundered in her chest. She gripped her mallet, and its weight comforted her. It would have been even more comforting if Sonic had offered a hug. She met his eyes. But instead of returning her gaze, he faced the other doorway, chewing his lower lip.

Footsteps rang on the stairs beyond the fancy doorway and arch. Knuckles appeared, galloping up the steps three at a time. "Don't chase him! He didn't mean any harm!"

Tails and Sticks arrived at this point, and they all stared at the big red echidna.

"Knuckles," said Amy, keeping her voice level, "Metal Sonic was sneaking up on me in the dark."

Sonic threw his hands in the air. "How did he get in here, anyway? Next Eggman will drop by for a visit!"

Knuckles closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped. "You guys, I let him in."

The room burst into an uproar as everyone began shouting at once. Amy gasped. Knuckles raised a hand and tried to explain, but everyone else drowned him out.

"Hey!" Amy shouted. She stepped up beside Knuckles and waved her hammer for attention. "Let him talk! I want to know what's going on."

"He's a traitor, is what he is," Sticks muttered.

"I'm not a traitor!" Knuckles said with an apologetic laugh. "Look, he was there with me when the Speaker picked me as Guardian. It picked him, too, and called him the Ghost. He's like-like island surveillance."

Tails and Sonic exchanged glances. "So," Tails said, "it reprogrammed him?"

Knuckles nodded, then shrugged. "I don't know. But I can talk to him now. It's kind of like ... mind speech." He tapped a temple.

"Hold it," said Sonic, folding his arms. "He was with you at the Speaker? Was he trying to kill you at the time? Because that's what he does."

Knuckles swallowed. "Um, no. He said that he'd help me find the Speaker if I would ... would help him get a voice."

Sonic's mouth fell open, and he checked his other friends' faces. "Are you guys hearing this? He's been working with Metal Sonic since before we even got here!"

Amy, being entirely reasonable, saw nothing wrong with Knuckles's explanation. "He made a deal, Sonic. I can see why Metal Sonic would want a voice. Tails might even be able to do that."

Tails shrugged. "All he needs is an external speaker and the proper driver. I could hook it up in fifteen minutes."

"And then what?" Sonic's ears flattened to his head like an angry cat's. "Then he says, 'ha ha, got you, chump' as he rips our throats out?"

Amy looked at Knuckles. "That's a fair question."

Knuckles didn't answer, but gazed toward the hall where the robot had gone, eyebrows furrowed. After a moment he relaxed into a smile. "He says that he wishes to interact with people on a deeper level than merely frightening them. And Orbot and Cubot make fun of him."

Everyone snickered. Even Sonic cracked a smile. "I could see that."

Knuckles cocked his head, as if listening. "He also says that the Speaker has made him unable to harm any of the island's crew. That good enough for you, Sonic?"

Sonic hunched his shoulders. "I guess. I don't like it, though."

"There," said Amy. "Differences settled. Tell Metal Sonic not to sneak up on people, Knuckles. And not to pass information to Eggman."

"He won't." But Knuckles didn't quite meet her eyes. "Thanks for turning the lights on, by the way. Tails, I think I've found the blueprints for this place. They're downstairs."

"Excellent!" Tails dashed down the stairs, Knuckles following.

Sonic gazed at the crystal light fixtures rather than at his departing friends.

Amy went to him and touched his arm. "What's the matter?"

Sonic sighed. "I don't trust Knuckles's judgment, you know? I mean, first he was his regular doofy self. Then he found that emerald and got all crazy. Now he's kind of normal again, but he ... knows stuff. But he's still sort of a doof. What am I supposed to do with that?"

Amy patted him. "This has been a big change for all of us. Our biggest adventure yet, even. Knuckles is still Knuckles-he just got saddled with a huge job. We have to help him all we can. Constantly running him down isn't helping."

Sonic's spines bristled. "He let Metal Sonic in here!"

Amy drew a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second. The memory made her insides tremble, and it took all her self-control to keep from screaming that Sonic was totally right, and they should destroy the robot as quickly as possible. "Yes ..." she said slowly. "But if he's telling the truth, and Metal Sonic has been recruited, then we have nothing to worry about. Right?"

Sonic huffed and looked away. After a moment he looked at her again, and his green eyes had gentled. "I'm just scared for you guys, Aims. Protecting us is my job."

It had been a long time since he had called her Aims. A butterfly fluttered through her stomach. Suddenly she was aware of how close together they were, and she took a step back. "I'm glad you're trying to protect us, Sonic." It sounded so lame. "Just ... no more fighting, okay?"

He shrugged. "I'll try."

* * *

"Where the devil are they?" Eggman muttered. He sat at his control center, facing a wall of monitors. Although it showed fifteen different views of Bygone Island locations, he hadn't seen a trace of Sonic or his friends all day.

"What are they, sick?" He rotated one camera to study Sonic's front door, and activated infrared scan. No heat signature. Sonic wasn't home. Neither was Tails, Knuckles, Amy, or Sticks.

"Metal Sonic, report."

A moment later, a message appeared on one of the screens: Message undeliverable.

Metal Sonic was out of range. Eggman sat back in his chair and stroked his mustache. Sonic and company must have gone off somewhere, and Metal Sonic had gone to spy on them, as ordered. But where? All of Bygone was within his wireless network coverage.

It was a tropical island with resort facilities-it wasn't out of the question that they had gone whale-watching, or hiking, or scuba diving. Inconvenient for someone with a business of upgrading robots, but Sonic might want a day off here and there.

Eggman pulled up the websites of all the charter boats on Bygone Island, hacked their databases, and searched for Sonic's name. Within minutes he found the information: Sonic and four other passengers, with luggage, had taken a boat to Angel Island, with directions to pick them up the following Friday.

Angel Island. He researched it. Empty, undeveloped, and for sale. Ancient artifacts had been found there, but excavation was difficult because of the lack of roads.

Why did the group suddenly decide to spend a week camping there? Of course, some people found roughing it fun, but Eggman had no use for mosquitoes, humidity, and a lack of running water.

He dispatched three spy drones to fly there and explore. If he could make contact with Metal Sonic, the robot could undoubtedly update him on everything that was happening.

A weather alert pinged on his lowest screen. Thunderstorms forecast tonight and tomorrow.

He grinned. Excellent. They'd never see his drones coming.

* * *

Knuckles and Tails bent over a thick roll of parchment spread out on the floor, because there was no table. Knuckles had discovered the scrolls in a collection of clay jars in a room off the crystal farm.

Now they read the blueprints in the dazzling light of the crystal clusters, which absorbed and refracted light throughout the room. The door to the Master Emerald chamber remained shut-Knuckles wasn't ready to share it yet.

Tails carefully unrolled the scroll, studying the designs. Hundreds of them-every system inside Angel Island was listed. The runic language of the Ancients was written beside each, explaining the diagrams.

Knuckles pointed to the writing. "Can you read this?"

Tails nodded. "It's an old form of our language, just with different letters. I had to learn to read it when I wanted to work with Ancient tech. This scroll lists all the systems-it's cross referencing other scrolls for individual schematics." He scrolled back to the top. "I'll try to find the first one."

The first diagram showed the Master Emerald on its altar. Inside the altar was a massive collection of transformers and cables, like an entire power station, and these cables extended throughout the whole island.

"We already know the place has power," said Knuckles uncomfortably. "Why not skip this one?"

"It still needs to be maintained," said Tails, giving Knuckles a frank look. "Nobody's been here in three hundred years! I'm amazed it still works." He reached for the clay jar, but a metal hand held out a scroll. Tails took it. "Thanks." Then he looked around at who had handed it to him.

Metal Sonic stood behind him and to the right, the clay jar at his feet, a half-open scroll in his other hand.

Tails jumped off the floor, tails spinning like a helicopter, and flew straight up to the ceiling, twenty feet overhead. He hovered there, eyes wide.

Knuckles didn't even stir from his seat on the floor. He rested his cheek on one hand and gazed at the robot. "You are really dang creepy."

The robot's crimson eyes flicked to him. In his head, Metal Sonic said, "Without a voice, what can I do? I was not secretive about rustling these scrolls. I am standing in plain view."

"What do you want?"

Metal Sonic lifted the scroll in his hands. "To assist in repairs. I have much knowledge of machinery workings."

Knuckles looked up at Tails. "Hey, he wants to help you repair stuff. Come down, it's okay."

Tails slowly descended, the motion of his tails beginning to make him twirl slowly in midair. "He's really on our side?"

"Really." Knuckles nodded.

Tails landed and faced the robot. Metal Sonic bowed slightly.

"Okay," said Tails, and drew a deep breath. "I can work with this." He opened the scroll Metal Sonic had given him, hands shaking a little. "Metal, what do you know about power systems?"

Knuckles had to speak for the robot. As the conversation grew technical, he had Metal Sonic relay shorter sentences so he was sure he was repeating the words correctly.

All the time, the Master Emerald's music rang in his head. He didn't want to open the doors and let these two into the chamber with it-it seemed a violation of its sanctuary. Yet it was the power source for the entire island. Knuckles couldn't clean the machinery himself. Heck, the blueprints scattered around them conveyed only the smallest meaning to his mind. And the conversation between Tails and Metal grew ever more difficult to keep up.

"So," said Tails, "we're most worried about the optical transfer rods and their connection to the core turbines. There must be a break, because nothing's running."

Knuckles listened to Metal's voice in his head. "Yes, and we must check that the coolant levels are optional-sorry-optimal. Before we restart the turbines ... Uh, because the system is run down and ... Can't you just give him a voice, Tails?"

Tails looked at Metal Sonic, and his eyes widened. "What, right now?"

Metal Sonic shook his head. Knuckles said for him, "We lack parts. I require an Ancient-make output device."

Tails rubbed his chin, leaving a dusty mark in his white fur. "You sure it can't be something modern? I have parts back at home."

Metal Sonic pointed at his chest. Knuckles said for him, "I operate on Ancient technology that Dr. Eggman reverse-engineered."

Tails's mouth formed an O.

Knuckles grinned at Metal Sonic. "Really? You are? That explains a lot."

"Yes. And I-" Metal Sonic broke off, and his head whipped to one side, as if hearing a sudden noise the others could not.

Tails and Knuckles stood still, watching him, tense.

Metal lifted a hand. "We must continue this discussion later. Intruders have arrived." He ran for the stairs, his limbs moving in an oiled, uncanny, half-alive way, and ignited his jet halfway up them.

"Intruders," Knuckles summed up.

Tails heaved an annoyed sigh, as if intruders were merely an annoyance that kept him from working on the island. He gathered up the scrolls and stashed them safely in their protective jar. "Better tell Sonic. But first, do you know where this power crystal is?"

Knuckles hesitated, pulled in two directions. "Yes ... but ... well, okay." The Speaker had selected Tails, and therefore the Master Emerald would be safe with him.

He opened the sealed door into the emerald's sanctuary. Tails followed at his elbow, and when he glimpsed the altar crowned with the huge gem, his mouth fell open. "Whoa! This is amazing!" He walked in and circled the altar, trailing his fingers along the stone blocks.

The Master Emerald pulled at Knuckles. He climbed the steps to it, and placed his hands on its top.

"Show me the intruders," he whispered.

Immediately the Emerald transmitted a picture to his mind-an aerial view of Angel Island, as if seeing it from a plane. The sky was gray and storm-indigo, and wind lashed the trees. Low over the trees, barely visible, flew three black things.

The vision flicked closer. They were matte-black spy drones, like little cameras with helicopter rotors. They flew here and there, pausing here to study a broken wall with runic carvings, stopping there to examine a bit of rusted metal protruding from a tree's roots.

Eggman had tracked them down.

Knuckles bared his teeth in a snarl.


	9. Chapter 9

Metal Sonic rocketed through the main hall on his way to the upper floors. Sonic looked up from digging an energy bar out of his backpack. "Where's he going in such a hurry?"

Amy and Sticks had been talking quietly at the other end of the room. Now they hurried to Sonic, eyes wide.

"What's going on?" Amy asked.

Sonic shrugged, pulled out his headset and plugged it into his ear. "Hey Tails, you there?"

"I'll tell you what's happening," Sticks said darkly. "A thousand million robots are outside, trying to find a way in." She produced her boomerang and brandished it like a gun.

Sonic nodded, listening. "Looks like Eggman sent some spy drones to see what we're doing out here. How Tails and Knux know that from downstairs is beyond me."

"We knew Eggman would find out eventually," said Amy with a sigh. "I just hoped it'd take a while." She looked at the broad staircase leading up to the entrance, and tapped her chin with one finger. "Actually. Why don't we do that?"

She grabbed her backpack and threw it on, then struggled to lift the tent bundle.

Sonic blinked at her. "What are you doing?"

"Help me get out one of the tents," said Amy. She flashed Sonic a mischievous grin. "Eggman will see exactly what we want him to see."

* * *

Eggman walked through his living room-lab with a sandwich and a pile of cookies on a plate. "Cubot, found anything?"

Cubot's yellow head poked into sight around the doorframe of the control room. "Just this loose change, boss." He held up three nickels, a dime and a quarter.

Eggman swiped the coins and stuck them in his pocket. "When I said watch for change, moron, I didn't mean currency! What have the drones discovered?"

Orbot hovered in front of the monitors with a notepad and pencil. "Not much so far, boss. They're combing the island in a grid pattern from south to north, but the storm keeps knocking them around." He pointed at one camera view that tilted and spun wildly, to end up entangled in a mess of tree branches.

Eggman took a bite of sandwich. "Blast. Maybe I underestimated the storm's effects." He touched the keyboard and pulled up a satellite view of the weather. The islands appeared as a cluster of blotches, with a thick swirl of green, yellow and orange west of them.

"The blasted storm's not even reached us yet," he muttered. "I'll have to shut down the drones until afterward. Those things are expensive."

He pressed a button, and the drone stuck in the tree went dark. A second drone he guided into the lee of a huge rock before shutting it down. And the third-

"Doctor, look!" Cubot exclaimed, pointing.

The third drone had dropped into a shallow ravine in the hillside. There was a huge brass door there, half hidden by ivy. In front of it was a green tent, with Sonic, Amy and Sticks trying to secure the pegs in the ground without the tent blowing away like a kite.

"Well well!" Eggman watched their struggle, grinning. "Camping out, are they? They should have checked the forecast first." He flipped a switch and lifted a microphone. "Metal Sonic, respond."

No answer. But the drone's tracking software picked up a blurry signal from Metal Sonic's hardware. He was somewhere on the island, but the storm was interfering with the signal.

"Maybe he's joined Sonic," said Cubot.

"Impossible," said Eggman. "I programmed him with a huge identity complex. He think's he's Sonic, so he can't stand the real thing."

Orbot shook his head. "That's harsh."

"Isn't it, though?" Eggman ate a cookie. "It also means he'll never join Sonic, no matter how much he wants to."

On the ground, Sonic stopped fooling with the tent and pointed at the spy drone. Sticks produced her boomerang.

"Whoops, time to go," said Eggman. He grabbed the control stick to maneuver the drone to safety, but the boomerang struck the drone's rotors. It jammed, went into a death spin, and crashed to earth. The screen exploded into static.

"One down, two left," said Eggman. "Once this storm clears, I'll zero in on that area around the door. Seems the hedgehog and his rodent friends have found something interesting. And I like interesting."

* * *

"Great shot, Sticks!" Amy exclaimed.

The boomerang whirled back to Sticks's hand. "I still got it."

Sonic clung to the tent, which the wind had converted into a struggling, flapping monster. "Girls, can we go in now?"

Amy grabbed the tent with Sonic, and slid one of the poles out of its spine. The tent collapsed, and it's canvas folds sank instead of catching the wind. "Yeah, let's go."

Sonic placed a hand on the door's handprint lock. The door opened with a click and rumble, and they hustled their gear into the shelter of the island's interior. The door rolled shut behind them, and the world went quiet and still. The crystal lights seemed already comforting and familiar.

Sonic slid the last pole out of the tent's frame. "It's getting wild out there. So, you think Eggman bought it?"

"His drone was trying to escape," said Sticks. "Count on it." She gave Sonic a fierce grin.

Tails dashed up the hall to them. "Did it work? Did it work?"

"Not sure," said Sonic, smoothing his windswept spines. "But a drone found us, checked us out, then tried to get away before Sticks smashed it."

"Great!" Tails high-fived the badger. "You ought to see this storm. I found some windows in the crew bunker. Come look!"

The crew bunker was a short distance off the main hall, and up a flight of winding steps. Inside was a circular room with eight doors, all standing ajar. "I explored them all," Tails confessed. "These three have the windows."

They pushed through the door and entered. Here the crystal's light was supplemented by real, pale, outdoors light. The room was about the size of Sonic's cabin, with wood-paneled walls, and four bunks built into the walls. The window was more like a tunnel-past the grimy glass, one looked through a six-foot-deep tube to the outdoors. Bushes waved outside the window-cave, and beyond that was a view of the Bygone Island coast, now white with stormy breakers. The sky was leaden. Lightning flashed.

Sonic whistled through his teeth. "So glad we're not trying to camp out in that."

Amy ran a hand along the paneled walls, then stuck her head into each of the bunks. "Needs a good cleaning, but definitely serviceable. Didn't Knuckles say we should set up in here?"

Sonic didn't answer, but his ears flattened for a second.

Amy explored the other rooms. They were all alike, except one that was obviously a bathroom. It had a row of stone toilet seats built over a running stream. Another stream trickled through a grating in the ceiling and filled a basin in the corner, which overflowed and joined the other stream.

"Great engineering!" Tails exclaimed. "We might want to find where this stream comes out, though, because we don't want to drink from it."

They all wrinkled their noses.

Sonic and Tails decided to bunk in the first room. Amy and Sticks took the second room with a window. It was identical to the boys' room, except that their window was shallower and more light filtered in.

Knuckles joined them as they hauled their packs into the rooms. He took the third room with a window, and helped with sweeping away dust and cobwebs.

Sonic asked him sarcastically, "Where's Metal Sonic staying?"

Knuckles seemed to miss the sarcasm. " I don't think he sleeps."

Amy observed this without a word, but continued pumping up her air mattress. Once Sonic and Knuckles had gone to their rooms, she murmured to Sticks, "I think they're going to have to fight it out."

Sticks looked up from where she was arranging her knapsack in a cubbyhole in the wall. "You bet they will. Knuckles is only playing dumb."

Amy stopping working the hand pump and let her arms rest. "You think so?"

Sticks nodded and sat on the floor. "Knuckles was never dumb. He just acts like it. Now he has something to be smart about and Sonic hates it. Sonic likes being the smart one."

Amy considered this. Sticks may have been paranoid, but she was shrewd, and her powers of observation bordered on clairvoyance. "You're probably right. I just wish they'd get it over with. I'm tired of the bickering."

"Me too." Sticks rooted around in her knapsack and pulled out a rolled air mattress. "You done with the pump?"

"Not yet." Amy returned to inflating her mattress. Once it was full, she passed the pump to Sticks, then wrestled the mattress into the bunk.

Thunder rumbled outside, vibrating the floor. It matched the foreboding in Amy's heart.

* * *

The team remained underground for the rest of the day, cataloging broken and missing parts, cleaning away dust and cobwebs, and exploring. Metal Sonic appeared briefly, water running off his polished body, but he vanished into the depths of the island.

They straggled to bed that night as exhaustion struck, and slept deeply and contentedly. Angel Island sheltered them, and even in its run-down condition, the love the Ancients had built into it sank into the psyches of its new crew.

The next morning dawned clear and windy, with more clouds piled along the western horizon.

"I'm going to call a boat," said Tails to Sonic, as he pulled on his sneakers. "I have a list of components to pick up in town."

Sonic frowned. "Eggman's been hanging around. You think that's a good idea?"

Tails's eyes burned with fanatical excitement. "It's parts for the power system and the computer room! If I can get those online, we might be able to launch the island!"

Sonic opened his mouth to ask what this meant. But a torrent of memories from the Speaker flooded his consciousness-memories of the island floating among the clouds, the land and sea spread out below. He grinned. "That would be totally awesome."

When Sonic and Tails announced this plan over breakfast in the bunker's hub room, Amy said, "I'll go. But Knuckles and Sticks better stay here."

Knuckles looked relieved. But Sticks exclaimed, "What? Why?"

Amy held up three fingers. "Half of us go, half of us stay. Eggman might attack at any time. Plus the water will be choppy, and Sticks, you get seasick."

Sticks backed down immediately. "Have fun on your boat ride."

"Maybe pick up more food," said Knuckles. "You know, canned stuff that will keep a while."

Amy jotted this down. "Sounds good. What else?"

Everyone gave her suggestions. She observed that Sonic and Knuckles never looked at each other. It would be good to separate them for a while, and there was nothing that eased bad temper like hard work.

Tails jumped to his feet. "I'll call the boat. Be right back."

An alert pinged on Eggman's wrist computer. He checked it from where he was eating breakfast. "Aha! Tails just called for a boat to pick him up at Angel Island." He tapped the reservation and studied it. "But it's a round trip pass, for only three passengers. So they're not going home."

"After that storm," said Orbot, "you'd think they'd be glad to get out of there."

Eggman finished his breakfast, eyebrows scrunched low, deep in thought. Finally he rose and headed for one of his many robot laboratories. Cubot stayed behind to wash dishes, but Orbot accompanied his master.

"I suppose you're wondering what I have in mind," said Eggman, as the red robot floated beside him. "Well! Not long ago I bought an interesting robot off a salvage monkey. It was fascinating, but small."

They arrived at an enormous metal door. Eggman pressed a button on his wrist computer, and the door opened. Inside was a huge aquarium with curved glass walls. Blue lights glimmered through the water, casting rippling lights on the ceiling, along with a single huge, torpedo-shaped shadow.

A shark swam around and around the aquarium with lazy sweeps of its tail. It was the size of a bus.

Orbot froze in midair, and his green eyes extended outward, then snapped back into his spherical skull. "A-a shark, doctor?"

"I improved upon the original design, of course," said Eggman, motioning to the monster. It turned and swam to the glass, presenting its entire forty-foot length. Its jaws were large enough to swallow Orbot and Eggman whole. Yet it hung there in the water, docile under the command of its master.

Up close, the body was built of layer upon layer of overlapping metal segments. A waterproof vinyl skin was visible beneath them.

"Notice the teeth," said Eggman. He gestured at the shark, which obligingly opened its cavern of a mouth. It had six outsized teeth, each the size of a shovel blade, and spaced far apart.

Orbot stared, perplexed. "Why design teeth like that, doctor?"

"Real sharks have teeth for eating fish," said Eggman with a grin. "This beauty has teeth for eating boats."

Orbot put two and two together. "Does that mean you're going to-?"

"Of course!" Eggman pulled a lever beside the tank. The tank's bottom opened, flushing the water and the giant shark out of the base, and down into the ocean.


	10. Chapter 10

The boat arrived at Angel Island at ten that morning. Tails, Sonic and Amy went aboard, which was tricky, as the boat heaved and pitched in the choppy water.

"Better get those life vests on!" called the captain. "This bay gets nasty during storms. You'd better finish your business by noon if we're going to make it back out here."

"No problem!" Tails exclaimed. "We're fast, aren't we, Sonic?"

Sonic bumped fists with him. "You bet!" Then they both gave Amy a skeptical look.

"I can shop fast when I have to," she said sulkily.

They pulled on their orange life vests, then sat down as the boat's engine revved. But before it could pull away, someone yelled, "Wait!"

Sticks came running along the dock in a flash of brown and white fur, lugging Tails's toolbox. She heaved it into the boat, barely missing Sonic's knees and Amy's feet. "Take this! You need it!"

"But Sticks," Tails protested, "I'm just running out to buy stuff. I don't want to lug my toolbox along."

"You need it!" Sticks repeated. Then she pressed a hand to her mouth as if stifling a scream-or tears-and ran away, back toward the island.

"That was weird," Sonic muttered.

"No kidding." Tails stowed the toolbox under his seat.

But Amy gazed after Sticks's departing figure, biting her lower lip, and fidgeting with the straps on her life vest.

Despite this disturbing send-off, the boat crossed the bay without mishap, although the waves jostled them as if driving down a rocky road in a truck with no shock absorbers. They reached Bygone Island and disembarked with relief.

Two hours of shopping, and the three met at the dock, all carrying armfuls of shopping bags.

"Hey, Amy!" Sonic said as the pink hedgehog approached. "I thought we'd have to wait ages for you!"

"Who, me?" She gave him a flashy smile. "I never waste time when it comes to spending money, Sonic."

"Well, don't blow your paycheck for the month," said Sonic. "Our commission for fighting Eggman isn't that big."

Tails said nothing, but busied himself with digging through his purchases, confirming that he had everything. One of the items was the robot-controlling device he had used on the dragonfly robots. Perhaps he could repair it using the island's plans or computers.

The boat chugged to the dock a few minutes later. The captain helped them stow their gear in a compartment under the rear seat, back by the engine. They donned their life vests and set out for Angel Island.

They had to circle the southern tip of Bygone Island before turning eastward for Angel Island. Here the waves grew larger, capped with white, as the wind sliced off the top of each swell. The passengers held on as the boat pitched and the engine labored.

The clouds of the next storm had engulfed half the sky, and lightning flashed along the horizon. Sonic watched it. "I hope we make it before that storm hits."

"We will!" Tails said, gripping the back of his seat. "Just think about all the things we can fix once we get there!"

Amy clung to her seat with her jaw clenched. "I just hope this doesn't get any worse," she muttered.

A shark fin surfaced in the distance. Sonic pointed at it. "Check that out, Aimes. Looks like it just got worse."

The fin knifed through the water toward their boat.

"Don't be silly," said Tails. "Sharks don't attack boats. They just follow them to see if they'll drop food."

Amy watched the shark fin's approach, her growing seasickness forgotten. "It's awfully big, you guys. Does Eggman have robot sharks?"

Nobody answered. Sonic and Tails watched the fin with new apprehension.

"It's silver," Tails pointed out. "Not gray."

The fin was still fifteen feet away when the shark's head exploded out of the water. The jaws opened wide enough to swallow a car, let alone their little charter boat. But the corners of the mouth were fastened with heavy, obvious bolts, and instead of flesh, the shark was thick plastic and metal.

Sonic curled into a ball and hurled himself at its snout, as the jaws engulfed the entire back half of the boat. Tails and Amy screamed. Tails grabbed Amy and threw her overboard, out of the shark's mouth.

Sonic hit the shark. The huge jaws snapped shut, the teeth shearing through wood, metal and plastic. The shark jerked its head sideways, and tore the entire back half of the boat off. It plunged into the water and disappeared into the depths.

The captain bellowed and leaped from the boat as it capsized. Without the weight of the engine, the cabin was now the heaviest part. The boat rolled over in the water, and sank rapidly.

Sonic, Amy and the captain floated in the choppy waves a short distance from the Bygone coast, panting and staring around.

"Tails!" Sonic yelled. "Tails! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, was he still on the boat?"

Tears streamed down Amy's face. "The shark got him, Sonic. I saw it. Him and all our gear."

Sonic gaped at her for a moment. Then he clenched his teeth and scowled. "It'll take him straight back to Eggman. If he's hurt, I'm going to-" he made a violent splashing motion.

"Let's get to shore," the captain called. "The tide is pulling us out to sea." Indeed, the rocky coastline was already twenty feet further away than it had been. They all set out, kicking and paddling, kept afloat by their life vests.

The windswept waves gave them grief, tossing them up and down, and splashing them unexpectedly in the faces. All three were glad to feel boulders underfoot, and to haul themselves up on solid land again.

Sonic pulled off his life vest, then offered his arms to Amy and the captain. "Hold on tight. I'll run us back to the village." They obeyed, and Sonic broke into a run.

* * * 

Tails sat up in the darkness of the shark's belly. "Well, that sucked."

The shark's dive had thrown him around inside it, along with the debris from the boat, and Tails's whole body ached. But it had leveled out into a smooth underwater glide, and he dared take stock of his surroundings.

He tapped his wrist computer and activated flashlight mode. The screen blazed white, illuminating the shark's insides.

It was simply a long metal tube, about four feet high and at least as long as the boat had been. The boat's back half, complete with onboard motor, rested on the floor, along with several inches of seawater.

Being eaten by a shark, even a robot one, was a traumatic experience. Tails sat there for a moment, staring at the severed boat, with empty panic swirling through him. He was deep underwater, inside a robot.

A robot. He gulped and dragged himself out of his panic. It was just a robot, not a live shark.

Tails climbed over the ruined boat and checked the compartment where they had stowed their gear. Everything was intact and dry.

"Eggman wanted to steal our stuff," Tails mused aloud. "Why? To figure out what we're doing?" He looked worriedly at the shopping bags. Eggman would learn quite a lot, because Tails had bought very specific parts. The shark was doubtless returning to its master now. If only he could hijack its navigation somehow.

He rummaged around in the ruins of the boat, and stumbled across his toolbox.

His toolbox! Sticks had known this was going to happen, somehow. She was the island's Seer. Tails's respect for her climbed toward reverence.

Tails opened his toolbox, and picked up a cutting torch with an attached butane tank. Then he hesitated. The air inside the shark was already going stale. The flame would burn the rest of the oxygen.

He put the torch back, and selected an awl and a hammer. "Let's see what makes you tick." He began punching holes in the metal skin with the awl, close enough together that he could tear open the metal hull.

* * *

Knuckles was busy sweeping down the dust and cobwebs that blanketed the Master Emerald's sanctuary, when the door swung open. There stood Metal Sonic, and behind him, Sticks.

"They're in trouble," said Sticks.

Knuckles paused, broom in hand, and his gaze flicked from Sticks to Metal and back. Seeing them together like this, blue robot and brown badger, sent a little jolt of panic through him. "Who's in trouble?"

"Sonic, Tails, and Amy," said Sticks. "Especially Tails. Tell him." She poked Metal's shoulder joint.

Metal Sonic's flat voice spoke in Knuckles's head. "Ten minutes ago, I intercepted communication from Eggman. A submarine robot has apprehended Tails, and all the supplies they were carrying."

Knuckles stiffened, hands doubling into fists. "What do we do?"

Metal Sonic's red eyes glimmered. "I must go to Eggman's base and attempt to rescue Tails when he is delivered."

Knuckles observed that flicker of the robot's eyes. "Which means you might betray us."

"Not intentionally!" Metal Sonic drew himself upright and lifted his chin. "I will not destroy the delicate secrets of Angel Island. However, Eggman may deactivate me and download my memory. If he does, he will possess everything the Speaker gave me." He clenched a fist in front of his chest, as if protecting the heart he did not have.

"Well," said Knuckles, "I guess you'd better not go, then."

Sticks appeared to follow this conversation, despite being unable to hear Metal Sonic's voice. "I knew this would happen. I made Tails take his toolbox."

"You did!" Knuckles beamed. "Great thinking! Or seer-ing, or whatever." He turned to the Master Emerald. "Show me Tails."

A vision entered his mind-Tails in a dark place, working industriously on the exposed circuitry of a machine. As he watched, Tails connected a small screen to several wires. Then he cracked his knuckles, grinning, and began touching commands on screen.

"I think Tails actually just hacked the submarine," said Knuckles. "Sticks and Metal, go keep a lookout for him. I'll stay here and use the Master Emerald."

Metal Sonic hurried away. As Sticks followed him, she said over her shoulder, "That emerald will fry your brain if you're not careful."

"I'm always careful," said Knuckles without turning.

* * *

Sonic and Amy arrived at Bygone Village and dropped off the captain at the insurance office. The captain strode in, dripping and grumbling about all the paperwork this would cause.

"Now what?" Amy asked, combing her fingers through her damp, windswept spines.

Sonic clenched a fist and gazed north. "Now we go deal with Eggman."

There was a brilliant flash of lightning, a crack of thunder, and rain cascaded from the sky in a gray sheet.

Sonic looked at the sky and spread his arms. "Really?"

Amy towed him sideways under the shelter of a shop's awning, which had already become a waterfall from the runoff. She wiped water out of her eyes. "As if we weren't soaked enough! This was not the day I had planned."

"Me neither." Sonic leaned against the wall of the shop and glared at the rain, which splattered on the pavement a few feet away.

Amy shivered and hugged herself. "I could go for a nice hot cup of tea right now. And some cookies."

"I could run us back to your house," Sonic said doubtfully. "Maybe if the rain lets up a little."

Amy shivered. Sonic almost put an arm around her, but froze. Would doing that imply that he had feelings for her? No, no, he didn't dare. But seeing her shiver hurt him inside. Almost as much as his heart hurt over Tails's fate. But he had learned the hard way what happened when he tried running in a downpour-eyeballs full of blinding, stinging rain.

In the distance, the surf roared and foamed on the beach. Sonic watched it and his ears grew pointed. Stupid ocean. Hiding stupid robot sharks. If he had the chance, he'd-

His wrist computer chirped. "Hey Amy!" Sonic straightened. "I'm getting a message from Tails!" He tapped the screen.

It was audio only, but Tails sounded cheerful, almost giddy. "Hey Sonic! Guess what! I hijacked the shark!"

"You what?" Sonic began to grin, and so did Amy.

"I broke into its computer system and I'm controlling it, now. Where are you guys? Want a ride?"

"Sure!" Sonic exclaimed.

Amy nodded, hands clasped under her chin.

"We're in the village," said Sonic. "Down by the main square."

"Hold on, I'll beach the shark there."

Sonic and Amy peered through the rain at the beach. After a few minutes, a gray torpedo shape bullied through the surf, and nosed onto the beach. It opened its huge jaws, and Tails beckoned from inside its mouth.

They ran through the rain to their friend, and climbed over the teeth. Tails was unhurt, and a little damp, and flung his arms around both hedgehogs. "I'm so glad you're all right! I didn't know what happened after the boat sank. I know you can't swim, Sonic."

"Life vest," said Sonic with a wink.

Amy stepped around the remains of the boat. "Ick. This stinks like gasoline."

"Help me push it out," said Tails. "I got our stuff out, and now it's just in the way."

The three pushed and pulled the boat's section out of the shark, onto the rainy beach. Then Tails had everyone sit down. "It'll be tricky getting back to deep water. I might have to roll us."

Sonic sat down in the back and braced his feet against the corner. Amy sat back to back with him, braced in the opposite corner. "Tails," she said, "this thing needs seats."

"Tell me about it." Tails went to a gaping hole in the shark's metal wall, and pulled out a small handheld computer, which was wired in to the machine. At his command, the shark's jaws closed, cutting off the noise of the rain and breakers. Then the huge tail began to thrash back and forth, pulling them backward against the waves.

The tide was still going out, so after a few minutes, they were deep enough for the water to drag them clear. The shark pitched sideways for a moment, then leveled out.

Sonic had grabbed Amy's hand to keep her from falling. Now he released her and pretended nothing had happened. She gave him a wistful look, but addressed Tails instead. "Where are we?"

"About fifty feet below the surface," said Tails, his face lit by his screen. "We're headed back to Angel Island. It'll be about forty-five minutes, I think. We're doing about thirty knots."

"What's a knot?" Sonic asked.

"It's how they measure speed at sea," said Tails without looking up. "Think thirty-four miles an hour."

"Excellent. But slow." Sonic dug into Amy's grocery bags and produced a bottle of water and a box of cookies. He handed them to Amy. "Sorry they're not warm."

She beamed at him anyway. "Thanks, Sonic."

Sonic looked away, hiding a grin.


	11. Chapter 11

"Tails stole my shark!" Eggman bellowed. "Of all the nerve! When you're swallowed by a shark, you're supposed to just sit there!"

"Doctor," said Orbot, "it wouldn't have mattered if it had swallowed anyone else. But Tails is smart."

"More's the pity," Eggman growled. "I still don't know what they're up to on that rotten little island. But if I can contact Metal Sonic-" He hammered a button. "Grr-why won't he respond?"

"Maybe Tails hacked him, too," said Cubot.

Eggman leaned back in his chair and thought about this. He got up and paced around his lair, thinking about it. It would explain Metal Sonic's erratic behavior. Reprogrammed into switching sides. If he had, then those foolish animals would share their secrets with him, never thinking of how easily Eggman could repossess him.

Metal Sonic would never switch sides of his own choice. Eggman hadn't left him any will in the matter.

Eggman circled back to the control room and flicked a switch. "There's two drones remaining active. I can use them to-"

Two screens lit up. Instead of showing the view from the drones' cameras, instead there was static with the message, "Feed lost."

Rather than bellow and rage, Eggman got up and walked out without a word. Orbot glanced at Cubot, and neither followed him.

Eggman roamed through the various rooms of his base, hardly seeing where he went, so great was his frustration. He'd been counting on those drones for spying! How had the rodents found and destroyed them in that storm?

Slowly his temper cooled, and his cunning mind kicked in. He needed Metal Sonic. Without information, he was crippled-and Sonic and his friends were up to something. Possibly they'd discovered some treasure of the ancients. Whatever it was, it was strange that it required all of them.

His pacing carried him into one of his mass production labs. He entered the antechamber, which held a table, a chair, and a computer that displayed charts about the factory floor beyond. The walls were made of glass, allowing him a fine view of the assembly line. Small robots rolled along a conveyer belt, and dozens of mechanical arms swung around them, installing chips, inserting paneling, tightening screws. A hundred robots were already complete, hanging on racks against the wall, waiting for his command. They resembled shiny blue-black hunting wasps-long-bodied, sleek as a bullet, and dangerous.

He pressed a key. A single black wasp detatched from the rack and zipped to the antechamber's door with a whirr of wings. Eggman opened the door. It flew in and landed on the desk, awaiting his command.

Eggman picked it up and turned it over, examining its construction, it's strong legs and stinger. It lay quiet in his hands, tame for its master.

"Yes, you'll do nicely." He carried it away to his workshop. "A few modifications, and Metal Sonic will never see you coming."

* * *

When Tails opened the shark's mouth at Angel Island's dock, Knuckles and Sticks were there, backing slowly away.

"It's okay!" Tails exclaimed, waving. "This is our shark, now."

Amy and Sonic climbed onto the dock, lugging their bags of supplies. Tails set the shark in standby mode, then hauled his own things to shore.

"I knew you were coming," said Knuckles, "but the size of that shark had me slightly freaked."

"I've seen houses smaller than that thing!" Sticks exclaimed. "Like mine, for example!"

Tails patted the shark's snout as it closed its mouth. "It's on our side, now. The best thing is, we don't have to charter boats to get back to the mainland, now." He grinned at Sonic, then Knuckles.

Knuckles gave him a thumbs-up. "You did good, kid."

Tails's grin widened.

Sonic glanced from Knuckles, to Tails, and back. Tails valued Knuckles's approval over his own? His spines bristled with a surge of temper.

Amy hoisted her bags. "It's a long walk back, everyone. Let's get going." She nodded at the cloudy, threatening sky as wind buffeted their fur. "Plus that storm's not over, yet."

They hauled their bags up the mile of freshly-cut trail, and were relieved to reach the door in the side of the ravine. It had begun to rain again, and the tiny stream in the ravine had grown to a respectable brook, brown, muddy, and full of leaves. It was a relief to scurry indoors, and feel the island's welcoming walls around them.

As they crossed the first intersection and descended the stairs, Tails said, "What's down those other halls? Has anybody explored them?"

Knuckles hesitated at the top of the stairs, looking right and left, his memories unwinding like a spool of thread. "Left, the weight chamber. Right, command and observation."

"A weight chamber, eh?" Sonic said. "That'd suit you, Knux. You can go down there and work out." His smile was full of teeth.

Knuckles glared at him. "Not that kind of weights. It's the island's balancing equipment."

Sonic shrugged. "Same dif. Go down there and haul lead around. Nobody will miss you."

"Boys," said Amy wearily, "please don't fight."

Sonic subsided, but he and Knuckles exchanged baleful looks all the way down the stairs.

At the main hall, everyone scattered. Tails carried his parts to the control room. Knuckles disappeared in the direction of the Master Emerald's chamber. Amy and Sticks carried everything else to the crew bunker, and Sonic trailed along, frowning at the floor.

Amy unpacked piles of fabric, and cleaning supplies. "Sonic," she called, "this place has to have a kitchen, right? Has anyone found it yet?"

"I think it'd be called a galley," said Sonic, leaning against her room's doorframe, arms folded. "And no, I don't know where it is. Ask the Great Brain Knuckles."

Amy gave him a mild look. "Do you have to do this?"

Sonic crossed his arms. "Do what?"

"Pick fights. Be a jerk. You're not like this at home."

Sonic straightened, ears flattening to his skull. "This isn't home, Aimes. This is Knuckles's clubhouse, where he's the big shot. Did you see Tails back there, seeing if Knuckles liked the shark?"

Amy raised her eyebrows and nodded, sharing a significant glance with Sticks. "Oh. That's what set you off. You're jealous."

"No! Yes!" Sonic clenched his fists. "Look, I'm the one who brought us together in the first place. I'm the one who got Tails out of foster care. I'm the one who got Knux to the hospital after he cracked his skull when we were ten."

"And I'm the one who moved here and followed you around," Amy added.

Sonic's expression softened. "Yeah, you were a cute little pest."

Sticks chimed in, "And I'm the one who plots defenses against aliens, meteors, and giant robots!"

Sonic waved a hand. "Eh, you were normal until your parents divorced."

Sticks's expression sharpened, becoming less random and more genuine. "I've moved past that, Sonic. It doesn't matter anymore."

Sonic wasn't in the mood to argue with Sticks. "Whatevs." He returned his attention to Amy. "The point is, everybody is looking up to Knux, now, and he's too dumb to lead anybody."

Amy stood and took Sonic's hand. "Let's go find the galley." She led him out of the crew bunker, back to the main hall, and down an unexplored hallway. Once there was no chance of being overheard, she said in a low voice, "Sonic, you're still the leader. But Knuckles is in charge of the island."

Sonic snorted. "Sounds mutually exclusive to me."

"It's not." They came to the usual bronze door with a handprint lock. Amy touched it, and it swung open, revealing a long corridor filled with enormous, domed machines. They were rusted and silent.

"Turbines," said Sonic. "Not the galley." They closed the door and retraced their steps.

Amy continued, "You're in charge of people, Sonic. Knuckles is in charge of a facility. They're both responsible positions, and if you want my opinion, I think Knuckles is in way over his head. He needs your support, not this constant sniping."

Sonic hung his head. "I know, I know. But - the look on Tails's face. I just can't get over it."

They returned to the main hall and took another unexplored passage. This one was shorter, and led to a spacious chamber filled with machines that looked as if they might be used for cooking. The sink looked more or less the same, but no water came out when Amy turned the handle.

She stowed her bag of canned goods in a walk-in pantry the size of a small house. It made a pitifully small pile among the rows of empty shelves.

Sonic gazed around the shelves, cupboards, and dusty ovens and stoves. "Ever wonder why they abandoned this place?"

"Yes," said Amy, opening an oven and peering inside. "It's got me more and more worried about us."

"What, like if they died of disease or something?"

"Or they went insane." Amy straightened up and gave Sonic a worried look. "This place has an aura that makes us feel at home. The Speaker put stuff in our heads. You can't do that to the brain forever, Sonic. Sooner or later, things start to break down."

Sonic dug a hand into his blue spines. "Now you've got me freaked out."

Amy tried various knobs and switches, but none of the machines worked. There was a vent in the ceiling, however, and occasional gusts of chilly, rain-scented air blew down it. She studied it. "The ventilation is good. I could set up our camp stove here for the time being. We could eat at that table over there."

"Sounds good." Sonic walked out, and Amy followed him. As she fell into step beside him, he said, "Once Tails gets the computers working, I'm going to have him try to find out what happened to the original crew. I think I'll head over there right now."

Amy nodded. "I'll go with you."

* * *

Knuckles sat in the cool silence of the Master Emerald chamber. The giant gem's glow bathed him in gentle green radiance, and a second orb of light gleamed from the smaller chaos emerald in his hands.

"Why me?" he whispered aloud. "Why did the Emerald grab MY mind, and force ME to come here?"

The emeralds didn't reply.

Knuckles rolled the chaos emerald between his palms. Seeing Sonic, Tails and Amy climb out of the shark had shaken him in a deep place he didn't know existed. They could have died. He would have been responsible-and they could have died.

When his mind was taken over, the urgency had driven him. It was imperative to find the Speaker, become the Guardian, and find Angel Island. But what now? The island was a run-down machine. This was a job for Tails, not Knuckles. His decisions were needlessly endangering everyone.

The memories the Speaker had given him told him what the island was for, and how to use it. But why did it matter? Eggman hadn't known about the place until they arrived. The island had been for sale for years and nobody wanted it.

"Look," he said aloud to the emeralds. "You've got me guarding you. I'd just like to know what was so important that you had to brainwash me and all my friends." He laid a hand on the Master Emerald beside him. "If you've got any hidden memories, show me."

An image appeared in his mind. A human female, floating in a tank of amber liquid. Long hair floated around her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, and a tube fed into her mouth. Her lips moved around it, as if talking in her sleep. Knuckles couldn't guess her age-the strange orange light made her young and old at once. With the image came a breath of the old urgency-the need to find her.

The image faded. He blinked at the Master Emerald, and a shudder raced through him. "What in the world was that?"

No answer. Knuckles passed a hand over his eyes. "Some human in a tank? And she's here somewhere?" He searched his new memories for a hint as to where, but drew a blank. There were no labs or hospitals on Angel Island. And there had never been humans among the Ancients. Most of the wars had been between the two races.

He needed to bounce this revelation off his friends. And the silence of the emerald chamber, once so relaxing, now seemed creepy. Knuckles bolted down the altar stairs and made for the door.

* * *

Everyone was in the control room. All the screens remained dark but the one announcing standby mode. Sonic and Amy stood in a corner, talking quietly. Sticks sat on the floor, watching Metal Sonic.

Tails was out of sight down the crawl space under the rack of computers. Metal Sonic lay on his belly with his arms and head extended into the crawl space, too, and there was much clicking and clanking rising from below. Half of Tails's new parts had vanished already, and as Knuckles entered, Metal passed Tails another one.

Knuckles detoured to look down the crawl space. "How's it going?"

"Great!" Tails called. "I'll have this fixed in another fifteen minutes!"

Knuckles approached Sonic, Amy and Sticks. "Hey."

"Hey," they replied. Sonic gave Knuckles an unfriendly stare. "What do you want?"

"Uh, well." Knuckles gazed at the crawl space and fiddled with a dreadlock. "The Master Emerald just gave me a ... a weird vision." How many secret tunnels existed on the island? What if the girl was in one of them? How deep did that crawl space go?

Everyone waited. When Knuckles didn't continue, Sonic rotated a wrist. "And?"

"There's a ..." Knuckles trailed off and moistened dry lips. "A person. In a sealed container. Here. Somewhere."

Metal Sonic pushed himself up on his elbows, glowing red eyes fixed on the echidna. Tails's head popped out of the hole. Everyone gave Knuckles their full attention.

"What," said Sonic, "like, a live person?"

Knuckles nodded.

"An Ancient?" Amy squealed.

"N-no. A human female."

"A human!" Sticks exploded, voice cracking. She leaped to her feet, boomerang in hand. "We don't need another Eggman! Where is this human? She has to die!"

"No!" Knuckles spread his arms, as if shielding the girl from Sticks's wrath. "I don't know who she is, or where she is. But we have to find her. It's the reason the Emerald sent us here. I think she's dying."

"Start from the beginning," Amy said. "Describe exactly what you saw."

Knuckles did so, adding every detail he could remember. Their attention encouraged him. Here was a goal that tied them together as a team, and even Sonic had forgotten their power struggle.

"Life support," said Tails. "That's the fluid and the tube down her throat. I'll bet it's running out. But why would the emeralds send for help? Chaos power doesn't care about people."

Knuckles shrugged. "Don't ask me, I just work here."

Sonic clapped his hands together and rubbed them. "Right! We're going to comb this place from top to bottom. Amy and I found the turbine room and the galley - they're those two places off the main hall that we hadn't explored. But we haven't checked everywhere, because there's still those unknowns off the entrance hall. Amy, Sticks and Knuckles, come on. Tails and Metal, stay here and get the computers working."

Tails saluted and ducked out of sight. Metal returned his attention to the machinery.

Knuckles chuckled inwardly at how easily Sonic gave orders, but he was happy to obey. They'd find the girl and everything would be all right.

But they couldn't find her.

Two hours later they returned to the control room, where three of the eight screens was lit, and Tails and Metal were tapping keys on the dusty control panel. Tails looked up as they straggled in. "Any luck?"

Knuckles shook his head. Failure weighed on him like a cinder block around his neck.

"This place is huge!" Sonic exclaimed. "And there's no sign of working life support where a girl might be stashed. Nothing's working at all, except the lights and these computers."

Amy asked Knuckles in a low voice, "She's not a memory from long ago, is she?"

"No, she's now." Knuckles couldn't explain how he knew this, but he sensed it in the same way he knew how to sort the Speaker's memories chronologically. This image was new, and it wasn't part of his memories.

Tails tapped a key, and the screens flickered with a series of maps drawn in blue lines. "Maybe the computers know about her."

Metal Sonic raised one finger, stepped in front of Tails, and worked the Ancient controls as if he'd used them daily. The maps rotated, then filled with small red images that portrayed the island's systems.

"Looks broken," Sonic remarked.

Tails's ears drooped. "It is. Look at all that. It'll take years to get it all fixed."

"And a couple million bucks worth of parts," Sonic added.

Metal Sonic spun the maps and checked every area of the island, but there was no sign of a girl in a life support tube. He looked over his shoulder at Knuckles and said into his mind, "I apologize. There is no girl in this system."

"Wait," said Amy, eyes widening. "Tails, when was this computer last updated?"

"Uh ... Looks pre-cataclysm. So, three hundred years or so."

"Knuckles said the girl is newer than that." Amy gazed at the echidna. "What if someone brought her here recently and didn't tell the computer about it?"

"But how?" Knuckles said. "We only got in because the Speaker set us up. Those handprint locks don't work for just anybody."

There was a silence.

"Unless." Sonic tapped a finger against his lower lip. "There's somebody else running around with a connection to the island. A hedgehog, maybe."

"Like Shadow?" said Tails.

Everyone shuddered. "I hope not," said Amy. "Besides, if this involved him, he'd be here already."

Knuckles nodded, as if making up his mind. "Tell you what. I'll go back to the Speaker in the morning and check. Metal can drive the shark for me."

Everyone agreed to this, although Tails was unhappy at losing his adept companion in repairs. Then Amy set up the camp stove, and they ate a hot dinner in the galley, which cheered and comforted them all.

But that night, Knuckles's dreams were haunted by a girl floating in amber, mumbling around the tube in her mouth. Except she was whispering, "Help me. Please help me."


	12. Chapter 12

The next day, Tails continued his repair work, Amy and Sticks began cleaning the bunker and galley, Sonic went out to explore the outside of the island, and Knuckles and Metal Sonic took the shark to Bygone Island.

They docked the shark near the island's southern cliffs, in a quiet bay. Knuckles climbed the cliffs, Metal simply flew up, and they hiked in to the island's interior.

The rain of the past two days left the air warm and humid, with moisture dripping from every leaf. Puddles gleamed like mirrors in every depression, and the numerous streams ran full and loud. Birds sang high overhead, and insects chirped in the undergrowth.

"What's your theory on this girl, Metal?" Knuckles asked, after they had hiked a while in silence.

The robot's almost-voice replied in his head, "She is more recent than the computer records, as Amy said."

"So where's she come from?"

"I have no data. Conjecture. There are other entrances to the island's interior than we have discovered."

Knuckles nodded, watching his footing, jaw clenched. Other entrances. Underwater, maybe? If the island was designed to fly, it might naturally have places for aircraft to land that might be closed off when the island landed.

They reached the ruined city by noon. By this time it was hot and the air thick with mosquitoes and flies. Knuckles waved them away, and glanced enviously at his robot companion, who was unaffected by insects. The crumbling buildings blocked what little breeze there was, and it was even more stifling as they followed the avenues toward the central square.

The Speaker, by daylight, was a forbidding echidna statue, three times larger than Knuckles. It looked like an idol. It was all too easy to imagine the square filled with kneeling worshippers.

Knuckles pulled the chaos emerald out of his backpack, and placed it in the Speaker's carved hand. As before, the eyes lit with blue light, and veins of blue ignited beneath the moss and lichen.

"Greetings Knuckles, Guardian of Angel Island," the Speaker said in its grainy telepathic voice. "What brings you here?"

No point beating around the bush. "Has anyone else ever been granted crew status with Angel Island?"

"Your request is vague. Do you wish to know the names of all former Guardians and their crew?"

Knuckles sucked his teeth and reconsidered his words. "We were the first crew in eight generations, right? So, my question is, have you registered anyone before us, in the past hundred years?"

"No. You are the first in eight generations. I do not lie."

"Oh." Knuckles felt foolish. A particularly large insect buzzed by, and he waved it off. "The Master Emerald said that there's a human girl on the island somewhere, and she needs help."

"That is between you and your island. I have no record of a human girl on Angel Island, either passenger or crew. However, your crew still lacks numbers. Bring her to me and I will equip her for island service."

Knuckles turned to Metal Sonic, intending to ask his opinion. But an enormous black wasp clung to the side of the robot's head, and Knuckles flinched. "Ew, there's a gross bug on you, Metal."

Metal's voice spoke in his head. "It has tapped my cortex with instructions from my master. I must return to him."

"Metal, no!" Knuckles grabbed the wasp and crushed it like a soda can. It sparked, quivered its wings, then died.

But the damage was done. Metal Sonic ignited the jet in his back and rose into the air. "I apologize for what will follow," he said into Knuckles's head. "Retreat to the island and prepare for battle." Then he rocketed straight up, out of the jungle canopy, and roared away northward.

Knuckles ran south, back toward the shark. Somehow he had to pilot it all the way back to Angel Island and warn the others before Eggman arrived.

* * *

When Metal Sonic presented himself to his master, Eggman directed him to the maintenance bay. "Can't have you defecting all the time, you worthless hunk of tin. Let's see what information you have stashed in that devious head of yours."

Metal Sonic walked slowly to the maintenance bay, head down, like a prisoner. The compulsion software installed by the wasp made him unable to disobey Eggman's orders, and this was further strengthened by programming from Lyric. He couldn't even erase his own data. His administrative privileges in his own system had been revoked.

He climbed into the ring of tools, underlit by sinister red light, and shut off his eyes. Eggman approached with a chip reader in one hand.

_I am Metal Sonic._

Eggman unscrewed the panel on the back of the robot's head.

_I am the Ghost of Angel Island. I watch all, see all, and I am Ancient._

Eggman set the panel aside and plugged his reader into Metal Sonic's internal access port.

_I fear nothing. I am Metal Sonic. I am about to betray my crew mates, but I will make it right._

Download commencing.

Memories were stripped away, chunks of them. He lost the Speaker, and his bargain with Knuckles, and days on Angel Island. Worse, his brief, fragile friendship with the Mobians was now gone.

Eggman laughed. "Well well, Metal! You've been holding out on me! What's this? A statue in the jungle? A huge underground facility on Angel Island? No wonder I couldn't contact you. Well done!"

Praise from his master. Usually something he coveted. But now, Metal felt only the emptiness where his memories had been. He was alone once more, and this time it hurt.

* * *

"I told you he'd sell us out!" Sonic exclaimed.

It had taken Knuckles hours to return to the shark, and another two hours to pilot it - slowly - back to the island, his back soaked in tension sweat the whole time.

He'd found Sonic waiting for him on the dock, so naturally he was the first one Knuckles told.

Sonic faced north, shading his eyes against the sunset. "No attack yet. But man, Knux! What a stupid thing to happen!"

They ran up the trail, back toward the ravine entrance.

"It wasn't like I could stop it!" Knuckles panted. "The wasp was only on him about two seconds. And worse, the Speaker didn't know anything about a human girl."

Sonic snorted. "Sure, it only knows Ancient stuff. But man, this thing with Metal - ugh! I knew he was trouble. Eggman always takes back his toys, and Metal's already changed sides once. Eggman probably has all kinds of stuff to help him recover rogue robots."

None of this made Knuckles feel any better. Deep in his heart lingered a yawning abyss of horror. He had asked Metal to go with him. He was responsible for the inevitable attack, and for Eggman now knowing everything they knew.

It's all my fault.

Knuckles's world was collapsing around him, and he struggled to catch the fragments before he lost them completely. "Sonic, when we get inside, we'll have to barricade all the entrances and set the traps. We might be able to beat Eggman back."

Sonic gave him a sideways look. "Might? You don't think I'm a match for Eggman and his cheap robots?"

"I think that all our other fights were practice. This will be the real thing. He's going to want Angel Island once he sees the Master Emerald."

Sonic jogged in silence, but his eyebrows scrunched and his mouth twisted. He'd never admit to Knuckles that he was right, but his face said it anyway.

As they opened the ravine door, Sticks met them, tugging on her pigtails in anguish. "Eggman's coming with a thousand million robots! What do we do?"

Knuckles had never questioned Sticks's clairvoyance before. Now he stopped and faced her. "Sticks, we need to know what kind of robots are coming."

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, then opened them again. "Black wasps in a cloud. Roller-beetles with lots of spikes. And piranhas in the ocean, tons of them."

"Is Metal Sonic with him?"

Sticks's eyes unfocused, and a look of sadness crossed her face. "Metal Sonic will be in a dark corner under a bunch of machines. Like he crawled there to die."

Knuckles's hands curled into fists.

Sonic jumped in. "Sticks, when will Eggman's army get here?"

"Dawn," said Sticks with conviction. "I can see the sun coming up."

"Great." Sonic turned to Knuckles. "We have all night to prepare. We're going to need your Guardian memories to know how to set up traps and stuff."

Knuckles nodded and tore his thoughts away from Metal Sonic. "Right. Let's tell the others and get to work."

But guilt and self-doubt gnawed him. Had all this happened because of his own lack of intelligence? Was he just too dumb for the Guardian role?

Amy and Tails took the news stoically enough. An attack from Eggman was a daily occurrence - Sonic might as well have been warning them about high tide. They packed away their supplies, and with the help of the control room's computers, set about barricading doors and loading traps.

The island's interior was full of traps. Most were disarmed, but a few, like the pitfalls on the stairs, worked well enough. Between them, they found the darts for the dart traps in the main hallway, set up the blinding traps that were connected with the lights, and activated a really frightening one in the main hall involving a huge boulder that would fall from the ceiling.

They wound up exploring all sorts of crawl spaces behind the walls and under the floors, but there was no sign of a girl in a pod. As Knuckles worked, an idea nibbled at the back of his mind. If all the island's machines were shut down, there were only a few places she could be. The scroll with the power transformers inside the Master Emerald's altar kept flashing before his eyes. What if ...?

But there was no time to check. As Sticks had predicted, Eggman's attack struck at dawn.

The first they knew of it was a tapping on the ravine entrance. Sonic raced up the hall to it, jumping rigged floor tiles, and listened. "They're not drilling or digging. It sounds more like-" His eyes widened. "Get back, everybody get back!"

The five fled down the tunnel as an explosion cracked open the door and part of the walls. Then a humming echoed off the stone as a swarm of black robot wasps sped inside, their eyes glowing red.

"Shield your eyes!" Tails yelled. As everyone did so, he ran forward and stamped one of the rigged floor tiles.

The crystal clusters on the walls brightened to the intensity of flash grenades. The wasps, blinded, flew in circles, striking the walls and each other.

The flash lasted only a second. Then the island's crew went to town on the confused wasps, knocking them out of the air and smashing them into the walls. Sonic used his spines, Knuckles his fists, Tails an electrified billy club he'd produced from his work belt. Amy swung her hammer, and Sticks threw her boomerang with deadly precision.

In a few minutes they fought their way to the ruined entrance. The door had cracked in half, and a hole the size of a rowboat was missing from the cliff side where the lintel had been. The ravine was choked with shattered stone.

Twenty feet overhead, Eggman watched from his round hovercraft, where he rested his elbows comfortably on the control panel. Metal Sonic floated beside him on his jet.

"Metal!" Tails gasped, and started to wave.

Knuckles grabbed his arm. "Don't. Eggman will have erased his memory by now."

"Well well," said Eggman from above. "Looks like you've found yourselves a nice little Ancient hideaway. Sorry to break it to you, but I bought Angel Island this morning. Everything on it belongs to me, and you have to get out."

Everyone gaped in horror except Sonic, who crossed his arms and smirked. "You're such a terrible liar, Eggman."

Eggman held up a sheet of paper. "This is a copy of my title deed. Metal Sonic, take it to them."

Metal Sonic flew the paper down and thrust it into Sonic's hands. Then the robot hesitated, gazing at Knuckles.

Knuckles gazed back. Was it possible that the robot retained some memories that Eggman hadn't destroyed? He mouthed, "Metal?" But there was no response from the not-quite voice in his head.

Metal Sonic shook his head and flew back to his master.

Sonic was reading the deed, and the smirk faded from his face. "Looks legit, guys. It's even from that real estate company Amy looked up."

Amy took the paper and frowned at it. "Oh no. I think he's telling the truth."

"What do we do?" Tails whispered.

A million horrified plans whirled through Knuckles's head. "All I can think to do is stall," he whispered.

Sonic nodded, then addressed Eggman. "We're going to need some time to look this up, make sure it's not a trick. Come back tomorrow."

"Oh no," said Eggman. "My possession went active at midnight last night. Here, let me give you incentive to leave." He jerked his head at Metal Sonic.

The robot's left eye brightened like a floodlight, then fired a laser that burned across Sonic's chest and right shoulder in a solid black slash. Sonic screamed and doubled up.

"Take your time about leaving," said Eggman mockingly. "But Sonic will need a hospital, if only for pain management." He whirled his hovercraft about and flew off over the island. Metal Sonic trailed behind, watching over his shoulder, almost regretfully.

They helped Sonic stumble back inside. He whimpered with every breath, and said over and over, "Don't touch me! It makes it worse!"

Tails dug his fingers into his head fur and danced in place, in almost as much agony as his friend. "Why did Metal do that? He's our friend!"

"Was our friend," Knuckles muttered.

"Sonic," Amy said loudly, "you have to let me look at it. I can't even see the burn with you folded up like that."

Slowly Sonic straightened and lowered his arms. The black line was the width of a pencil, and looked for all the world as if someone had written on him with a marker. Even from a few feet away, Knuckles smelled the burned fur and flesh. The wound was cauterized, and could not bleed.

Amy sucked in her breath through her teeth. "You do need the hospital, Sonic. This will go septic in a day or two."

Sonic bared his teeth. "And leave our island to Eggman? That's not even an option!" He took two steps and doubled up again, clutching his chest.

In the distance, another explosion echoed through the island's interior.

"He's breached the east entrance," Knuckles muttered. "We hadn't even used that one yet."

Tails chewed his fingers through his gloves. "We'll be overrun in half an hour. We can't fight without Sonic! Even the traps are just backup!" He looked at Knuckles with desperation in his eyes.

Knuckles turned to Sticks. "Well, miss seer?"

Sticks had been remarkably calm this whole time, watching Sonic, or gazing out the ruined entrance, idly playing with her boomerang. At Knuckles's question, she shrugged. "We have to leave. But once Sonic's better, we'll be back."

"Sticks!" Amy exclaimed, and to everyone's surprise, tears welled in her eyes. "You want us to abandon this place? I could take Sonic out, and you guys could stay here-"

"No." Knuckles held up a hand. The finality in his voice focused every eye on him. "The emeralds called us here because of the girl." He hesitated, and drew a steadying breath. The next words felt like treason. "The island needs a crew, yes, but the girl needs us more."

"But we can't find her," Tails pointed out.

Knuckles clenched his jaw. "I think I know where she is. I have to get to her before Eggman's robots find her. You guys, get Sonic down to the dock. Hopefully Eggman hasn't taken the shark. Wait for me and I'll meet you there with the girl."

They all gazed at him with astonishment, even Sonic, though his eyes were clouded with pain. Knuckles half-expected them to demand to go with him, or shout down his command as ludicrous.

Then Sonic said, "What are we waiting for? Injured hedgehog, here!" The four focused on him, and helped him out the broken entrance. Knuckles ran the other way, through the halls and down the stairways, toward the Emerald chamber.

 


	13. Chapter 13

The robots were just entering the main hall as Knuckles galloped down the Emerald chamber's stairs. Great-he'd have to fight his way out, and probably while carrying the girl.

She had to be there. The Master Emerald had given him the vision of the girl because it was keeping her alive. All this time, he'd been playing with the island's power source, never considering that life support needed power, too.

He crashed through the door into the Emerald chamber. No robots yet-only tranquil green light and polished, mirror-smooth floor. The Master Emerald sat atop the altar, and for a moment Knuckles stared at it. What would Eggman do with it?

Then he shook himself. They'd come back. Sticks said they would. Right now he had to find the girl.

He circled the altar, tapping it with his claws. The schematics showed it opened up. But where were the doors? In the back?

Doubt gnawed at him as he stared at the altar's stone back. What if he opened it and found only old machinery? What if his guess about the girl's location was wrong?

A seam split the altar from top to bottom. Knuckles dug his claws into the seam and levered the doors open.

They were stone-paneled wood, and extremely heavy. Even Knuckles, with all his prodigious strength, could barely lift them. He peeled back one and peered into the altar's interior.

As the schematics had shown, a series of fat white transformers were plugged into the Master Emerald's base. Beneath these were a dizzying array of cables, smaller transformers, circuits, and other things Knuckles couldn't name, but looked dangerous.

The girl's pod was smaller than he expected, tucked off in one corner. A lot of shiny, new-looking cables had been spliced into the existing system. The tube looked like a tall bottle with a lid and base. The girl floated inside, as he had seen her, a feeding tube in her mouth. She wore no clothing, and her hair had grown several feet long until it swirled against the glass. Her fingernails, too, resembled talons. The water was cloudy and looked unclean.

He pried open the other door to reach her better, and stepped in front of the tube. It had two tiny screens in the front, and both flashed red warnings about reserves running low. Why had they left her for so long? Was someone supposed to come back for her before now? The only one who could answer that was the girl, herself.

For a moment Knuckles stared hopelessly at the complex controls. Then he spotted a big black button with red letters: begin ejection. He pressed it.

There was a rush of fluid through pipes, and the tank began to drain. There was a strong stink of sewer. Knuckles held his nose and watched. Would he have to unhook the feeding tube himself? The idea gave him wobbles in his middle. Then, as the water drained past her face, a new thought struck him. She had no clothes, and he had to carry her through the chilly hallways. Then outside, through scratching jungle growth. Then through a ride in the shark, with everyone watching. Humans lacked fur and had to have clothing!

He dashed out of the Emerald chamber and back toward the stairs, but hesitated. The upper levels rumbled with the movements and voices of countless robots. Instead, he doubled back to the small store of supplies Amy had stashed in the room with the scrolls. Bless her, she had included two fair-sized blankets. Knuckles grabbed them both.

When he arrived back at the tube, panting, all the liquid had drained. The feeding tube had withdrawn itself from the girl's esophagus, and her eyes were open. She huddled in the bottom of the tube, hands pressed to the cloudy glass, blinking into the darkness uncertainly. As Knuckles appeared, a slow smile transformed her thin face. She was probably ten years old, and very thin. Her hair covered her body like a cloak.

The tube hissed and slowly lifted open. Now there was nothing between Knuckles and the person the emeralds had driven him to find. It was like meeting a celebrity. He raised a hand and waved. She did, too. He lifted a blanket. "Um, I brought this. Since you're, you know, all wet."

She nodded and leaned forward a little, feebly attempting to brush back her acres of hair. Knuckles tossed the blanket around her, and added the second, for good measure. She smelled exactly like the sewer water, and he fought the urge to gag. "It's not her fault," he thought. "I should have gotten here sooner." Aloud, he said, "I'm going to lift you now, okay? I have to get you out before Eggman gets here."

She made a mumbling sound as he hoisted her off the tube's platform. He checked her face. "You okay?"

She winced and touched her throat, then mimicked the shape of the feeding tube.

"Oh," said Knuckles. "You can't talk because the tube hurt your throat? That's okay-you'll get better." He lifted her with her head against his shoulder, then hurried toward the staircase.

Shadows moved. The unmistakable shadows of Eggman, Orbot, and Cubot as they descended the stairs. "Energy readings are off the chart," Eggman was saying. "This must be where that giant chaos crystal is hidden."

The girl peered at Knuckles questioningly. Knuckles ducked around the foot of the stairs and pressed his back against the wall, hoping against hope they'd go by without seeing him. He glanced at the girl's wide blue eyes and shook his head.

Eggman and his robots indeed walked straight by Knuckles, headed for the Emerald chamber. But they were followed by a stream of wasps and other kinds of robots, all armed and scanning for danger. They spotted Knuckles immediately.

He swung around the stairs' foot and galloped up them amid a hail of bullets and plasma bolts. He should have been shot ten times over, but the girl made a complicated motion with both hands. The attacks slid around them, striking the stairs on either side.

"It's the echidna!" Eggman bellowed. "He's got something important! Don't let him escape!"

Knuckles reached the top of the stairs, panting, legs burning from exertion. The main hall was full of robots-wasps, roller beetles, and other kinds he'd never seen-and they all turned and faced him. He whispered to the girl, "Keep doing that shield thing." Then he rushed into the robots, toward the upper stairs.

The girl waved her hands, fingernails clicking. The robots fired, but again, nothing struck them. Knuckles slipped between the robots as if his whole body had turned to rippling, flexible oil-but to him, it appeared that the robots bent out of his way like grass before a wind.

He gained the stairs and was halfway up the first flight, when Metal Sonic appeared at the top. Knuckles grimly kept running straight at him, but unlike the other robots, Metal didn't bend aside. He reached out one clawed hand and caught Knuckles by the forearm, and Knuckles halted as if the robot had anchored him to the floor.

"Why doesn't it work on Metal Sonic?" Knuckles panted. The girl gave him a terrified look.

Metal Sonic simply stood there, gripping Knuckles, gazing at him in silence with his glowing red eyes. Downstairs, Eggman's voice echoed through the main hall as he pursued-slowly.

"Metal," Knuckles whispered, "did Eggman erase all your memories? Or can you remember anything?"

The robot remained motionless, still staring at him.

"Look," Knuckles whispered, "you saw me when the chaos emerald was taking over my mind. You knew where it was sending me, and you made a deal that you would help me if I would get you a voice. Remember?"

Metal Sonic's eyes slid away sideways, and he peered down the stairwell, where Eggman was just beginning to puff his way up.

Knuckles kept going. "Then we found the Speaker, and it made me the Guardian and you the Ghost. Having your mind wiped doesn't change that!"

Metal Sonic gave no sign that he heard. But the girl glanced between Knuckles at the robot, frowning as if figuring out a puzzle.

Eggman arrived, Orbot and Cubot in his wake. "The first thing I'm adding to this place is elevators," he gasped. "You caught him! Good job, Metal Sonic."

The robot acknowledged with a slight jerk of his head.

"So!" Eggman gazed down at the girl. "This is the girl Metal said that you've been hunting. Who is she?"

Knuckles shrugged. "The President? I don't know."

"But why was she here?" Eggman pressed. "This is Mobian country."

Knuckles shrugged again.

Eggman sneered. "That's right, you're the oh-so-intelligent one. The one who Sonic always compensates for. Tell me, are you simply uneducated, or is there mental retardation involved?"

This stung deep into the core of Knuckles's being. He couldn't believe Eggman had said it, and replied simply, "What?"

"Definitely mental retardation," said Eggman. "Now, since everything on this island belongs to me, that includes the girl. Hand her over."

Knuckles clutched her closer, and felt her tense. "A real estate sale doesn't include people. Now who's the retard?"

Eggman's brows lowered over his glasses.

"Besides," said Knuckles, "you got the island, and all the machines, and the Master Emerald. We'll get out of here and you can build a nice little super weapon out of it."

"Take the girl from him, Metal Sonic," Eggman growled.

Suddenly, inside Knuckles's head, Metal Sonic's not-quite voice spoke for the first time since he had been memory-wiped. "Punch me in the forehead. Now."

This was accompanied by a wireframe image in Knuckles's head. It sketched Metal Sonic in green lines, and indicated the exact spot where the blow must fall. It also included a disturbingly complex diagram of how much hardware this would destroy.

Knuckles blinked at the robot. Metal's eyes were fixed on him steadily.

"All right," Knuckles muttered. "Sorry about this." He twisted his free arm out of the robot's grip, and sucker-punched him right between the eyes.

Both of Metal's eyes shattered. He flew backward with his forehead caved in, and bounced down the steps like a dead thing. Eggman squawked. Knuckles fled.

 


	14. Chapter 14

This time, there were no robots between him and the broken outer door. Knuckles burst into the sunlight and bounded down the trail toward the dock. He shielded the girl's face from stray branches with one hand.

But inside him, his heart was heavy and sick. Metal Sonic must have remembered, somehow. He'd been able to speak to Knuckles, as the Speaker had taught him. And Knuckles had as good as killed him. The picture of the damage he would do remained in his head. It even showed Metal's glass eyes shattering.

He arrived on the dock, panting, and found the shark floating beside the dock, mouth open, with everyone looking out for him with anxious expressions. As he pounded down the planking, Amy squealed, "He found the girl!"

"Make way!" Knuckles called. "We've got to get moving - Eggman wants her."

Knuckles carefully passed the girl into the arms of his friends, then climbed into the shark, himself. The jaws closed, and its engine hummed as Tails reversed them away from the dock.

Sonic sat in the back, against the wall, with white bandages plastered over his burn. He had deep pain-shadows beneath his eyes, but he sat up a little as Amy, Sticks and Knuckles set the girl beside him.

"What's her name?" Amy asked.

"I don't know," Knuckles replied. "The feeding tube hurt her throat so she can't talk."

The girl gazed around at them, each brandishing a flashlight in the darkness of the shark's belly. She made a mighty effort to clear her throat, then mouthed a word.

"She's trying to tell us her name," said Tails, looking over his shoulder from where he was piloting the shark.

The girl mouthed it again.

"Ma something," said Sticks.

Amy watched the girl's lips, and mimicked the movements. "Maria?"

The girl nodded and smiled.

Sonic shook one of her long fingernails. "Pleased to meet you, Maria!"

"Poor thing," Amy murmured. "Once we get to land, I'll take care of those nails and that hair. I sure wish you could talk. Knuckles, where was she?"

Knuckles sat against the wall, knees drawn up and shoulders hunched. "Inside the Master Emerald's altar."

Tails looked around, his mouth falling open. "That's where she was? In the power center?" He added to himself, "Well, of course the power center. Duh!"

Sonic poked Knuckles's leg. "For fulfilling your Master Emerald mission, you're pretty down. Something happen?"

Knuckles nodded once. "Metal Sonic made me kill him."

Everyone gasped, "What?"

Knuckles told the story of rescuing Maria in the face of Eggman's invasion. "I wish I could show you this picture he put in my head. By hitting him there, I broke all his computer stuff. You know in our computers, the big green board that everything else plugs into?"

"The motherboard?" Tails offered.

"Yeah, that thing. That's what I broke inside him." His voice cracked.

Amy patted his arm. "He told you to hit him there, Knuckles. He even gave you a picture so you'd do it right."

"Yeah, but ..." Knuckles looked at Sticks and couldn't go on.

Sticks's eyes widened. "Oh. You think this is when he crawls away to die?"

Knuckles nodded.

Sonic snorted. "He's a robot, Knux. Eggman will fix him and he'll be chasing after us in another week."

Knuckles slowly inhaled and nodded. "You're right." But it didn't make him feel any better. Metal Sonic's memory had already been wiped - how much more would he lose once more hardware was installed?

The shark rolled to one side. Everyone grabbed at the walls and each other for balance. "What was that?" Amy exclaimed.

"Oh no," Tails growled. "There's a whole school of robot fish surrounding us."

"The piranhas!" Sticks cried. "Eggman knew we'd escape in the shark!"

"Piranhas?" Sonic said, ears flattening. "Does that mean they'll eat through the shark and sink us?"

Tails nodded. "Everybody hold on. I'm going to full throttle." The shark lurched forward with powerful sweeps of its tail. Blind without windows, they all waited for Tails's report.

"They're falling behind," Tails said. "Oh man, the piranhas are speeding up, too. Come on, shark, faster!"

The back wall grew warm as the shark's engine surged. There was a rushing noise outside as water swept over the shark's torpedo-shaped body. But their sheer size slowed them down, and the whippy little piranhas caught up. There was clanging noises all around them, and the unmistakable sound of chewing.

"They're going after the rudder fins and tail," Tails said. "We're ten minutes from shore, too!"

"Get to the surface!" Sonic exclaimed. "If we start to sink, maybe we could swim it!"

Amy gave him a sarcastic look. "Sonic, those robot piranhas are chewing through solid metal. What do you think they'd do to us?"

* * *

All this time, Maria had said nothing, but remained huddled against the warm back wall. But she listened to everything around her, and thought hard.

Whoever this Eggman was, he clearly planned to kill them rather than let them escape. And he had certainly wanted her badly back on the island.

Maybe she could help them escape.

Spending half a century plugged into the Master Emerald had transformed her. They had told her that it might, but all they had wanted was for it to cure her disease. It had been cured, all right - her lungs filled easily with air now, and the chronic weakness in her limbs was now merely from neglect and malnutrition. But the disease had been replaced by chaos power, as minerals replace tissues in a fossil.

Maria could touch everyone in the shark. All of them contained chaos power in varying amounts, and her heart swelled with affection. These were her people now - these wonderful, chaotic, powerful Mobians. She whispered to Shadow, "You are truly my brother now."

He heard, and she felt his fear, but he had never been able to answer her. Still, he was alive, and the knowledge cheered her. She would see him again with her eyes, and not merely in dreams.

But she had to survive long enough to recover.

She lifted both hands and began to weave chaos energy in a diamond pattern. The kind echidna who had rescued her - Knuckles - laid a hand on her shoulder. "Anything you can do to help us would be great."

She nodded and focused on the weaving. Four dimensions, four angles. Width, breadth, height, time. The power must be a short burst, so the time-side was smaller than the others, but thicker. She worked intuitively, guided by the power embedded in her very cells, drawing on a power that predated the Ancients.

The shark lurched. Tails wrestled the controls. "They've torn off the left rudder! And the tail-"

A trickle of water leaked down the inside wall. "No!" Sonic exclaimed. He jumped up and pressed both hands to the leak. Half an inch away, metal teeth flashed and tore at the shark's vinyl under-skin.

"Any time now," Knuckles murmured to Maria.

She nodded, her heart beginning to pound despite her serenity training. Three more passes -

Another hole opened, then another. All the Mobians leaped up and tried to hold back the water with their hands. Maria could feel the piranhas all around, chewing like rats, intent on destruction. But she focused on a beach near a town. She had seen it often in her dreams, because Shadow went there to buy food, and everything he saw, she dreamed. There was even a hospital a few blocks away.

Her spell floated before her in glittering blue-green light, a perfect trapezoid, and beautiful. She touched a finger to the center and whispered, "Chaos control."

The spell expanded in four directions in a flash of green, and vanished through the walls. There was a heavy jolt, as if they'd struck a rock, and the engine whined suddenly. Tails cut it off. "Hey! What happened? Guys, we're on land somehow!"

Everyone cautiously pulled their hands away from the holes, which no longer leaked water. Daylight shone through them.

"It was Maria," said Knuckles proudly. "She did something."

Tails opened the shark's jaws, and there stood Bygone Village, beyond the sand dunes. Robot piranhas flopped in the sand, jaws still snapping. Tails ran outside and kicked them higher up the beach, away from the waterline. "I'll take them apart later," he said, returning to the submarine. "Come on, everybody."

* * *

Knuckles carried Maria through town to the little hospital, flanked by his friends, who watched in all directions for any sign of attack. But their teleport must have foiled Eggman for the time being, because there was no sign of his robots.

Maria was checked in, then whisked away for an exam and emergency nutrition care. The Mobians returned to their neglected houses and ate dinner.

Amy returned to the hospital late that night, and asked about Maria.

"She's in room ten," said the nurse at the front desk. "Go on in. Your big red friend said that Eggman is after her, and we certainly don't need that maniac crashing in here."

Smiling a little, Amy found room ten and opened the door. Maria lay in a white bed, her golden hair trimmed to shoulder length, and nearly brushed. Her blue eyes were fastened on Knuckles, but she looked at Amy with the same wonder, like a newborn kitten.

Knuckles sprawled in a chair, arms folded across his chest, dozing, but he roused when the door opened. His eyes were sunken with exhaustion and stress, but he scanned Amy with a defiant expression. Had she been a robot, she'd be in several pieces right now.

Amy advanced to the bed and took one the girl's thin white hands with freshly-trimmed nails. "You look much better, Maria. How do you feel?" She didn't expect an answer.

To her surprise, Maria said softly, "Tired, but well. Is Shadow coming tonight?"

Amy glanced at Knuckles in bewilderment. "Shadow? Why would he come here?"

Maria's eyes were calm and innocent. "Because he's my brother, of course."

Knuckles laughed out loud, then stopped when Maria only looked at him. "Wait, are we talking about the same Shadow? Black hedgehog, red stripes?"

She nodded. "That's him. I'm glad you know him. He's a lovely person, so gentle and funny."

Amy and Knuckles exchanged incredulous glances. While Shadow was many things, gentle and funny were not two of them.

Amy cleared her throat. "Um, the Shadow we know is kind of ... not so nice. He keeps to himself. We haven't seen him since we defeated Lyric."

Maria's face clouded, and she glared at the blankets. "Lyric hurt Shadow. I dreamed it all. I'm glad you killed Lyric for us. I've told Shadow that I don't want him to ever kill anyone, and so far, he hasn't."

"Not for lack of trying," Knuckles muttered under his breath.

Maria gazed at the far wall with a rapt expression, as if seeing into the distance. "He'll come find me. When he does, we'll awaken Angel Island together."

"What about Eggman?" Knuckles asked.

Maria fixed him with her luminous blue eyes. "There will be many battles. Darkness lies ahead, and blood. We must stand together, for there lies our strength."

Knuckles and Amy exchanged a nod.

"Bring it," Knuckles said.

 

The end

 

Don't miss the sequel, THE MASTER EMERALD'S DAUGHTER


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